


Spirited Away

by Moosepelheim



Category: Iron Man - Fandom, Marvel, Thor - Fandom
Genre: BUT GOOD, Dark Fairytale, Does anyone else remember that Anthony Hopkins played Hannibal Lecter?, Frigga is awesome, Howard isn't the best dad but he loves Tony, Ireland, Loki Does What He Wants, M/M, Maria loves her two idiots, Modern Setting, Seelie Court, Spirited Away AU, Teenage Tony, Thor is simple, Tony loves his parents but they're really annoying, Unseelie Court, Western folklore, as in terrifying, even though it sorta comes off that way at first, hint hint, no underage stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-09-25 07:42:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 31,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9809762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moosepelheim/pseuds/Moosepelheim
Summary: “I was reading online about different things to do,” Maria says excitedly, pulling out the travel binder she takes with them anytime they go on a vacation. It will be filled with information about local attractions, restaurants, theatre and musical venues and what is playing.“There’s a wax museum--”“It’s probably awful,” Tony says.“And a Natural History museum--”“Oh please god no,” Howard says.“And, oh, look at this one! I think you’ll both be interested in this one!” Maria says, rooting around in the binder, then pulling her hand up to reveal an extended middle finger.They spend the rest of the car journey finding ways to surreptitiously flip each other off. Howard pulls a middle finger out of his coat pocket; Tony finds a middle finger up his nose; Maria finds another middle finger in her purse and applies it to her lips like lipstick.Tony's parents take him to Ireland as a graduation present--Tony does what he does best and gets into trouble. But this time he might not manage to get out of it.





	1. Don't stand in fairy circles.

**Author's Note:**

> Tags will be added as the story develops.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen we’ll be starting our final descent into Dublin, Ireland. If you could please put away your tray tables and return your seatbacks to their upright positions. We’ll be sending a steward through the cabin to collect trash. We’d like to thank you for choosing Aer Lingus. Fáilte go hÉirinn, and safe travels.”

Tony leaves his tray table down and seat back reclined as long as he can before the glare he gets from his father starts to blister the side of his face. Then he slams the tray table up and jolts the chair up as quickly as he can. It doesn’t spring up in a satisfying snap like he was hoping for, it sort of starts and stops, jerking slowly upwards and ruining the drama of it all.

Tony will be turning sixteen in a week, and then two months later he will be going to college. His mother and father decided to take him to Ireland on a sightseeing tour for his high school graduation present, on the dubious claim that mom’s family had family from Ireland. Right. Pretty much everyone in America claims they have family from Ireland, doesn’t mean you hop a plane and waste an entire summer loudly claiming “Look at me! I’m Irish! TOP O’ THE MORNIN’ TO YE”

Actually, that’s probably exactly what a lot of Americans do.

Tony doesn’t hate Ireland. He doesn’t really give a fuck about Ireland, honestly. Like, they have some good metal bands, Primordial and Cruachan come to mind, but other than that his mind is blank when it comes to Ireland.

The real problem he has with this trip is that they didn’t ask him first. If they’d asked him he would have declined.

Instead they have dragged him away from the last summer that he could have spent around people his own age. In his final year of high school, in his final MONTH of high school, he’d finally found a girl who was willing to let him get close enough to feel her up in the back of his car. He was (probably) finally going to have sex!

He knows better than to think he’ll have a chance with college girls, even with his (dad’s) fortune. He’s gained a little muscle, but he still looks fourteen. No sex will be forthcoming once he enters the hallowed halls of MIT.

Choose between sex and Ireland? Like, come on.

“She’s not even that attractive anyway,” his dad says, reading Tony’s dark mood and identifying the cause with pinpoint accuracy.

Here’s the thing about his dad: he’s an awful dad. Really just terrible—never says what Tony needs him to say, not there in conventional ways or ways that would make anyone feel secure. He’s selfish, easily distracted, and too honest. You’re not supposed to give a detailed art critique to your toddler’s crayon scribblings, okay? You’re supposed to say “Good job, Tony!” and put it up on the fridge.

But he’s a great man. Tony admires him, despite himself. His dad is the funniest, smartest, coolest, handsomest man he knows. If he didn’t resent his dad so much he’d admit that he wants to _be_ his dad.

He’s going to MIT at the age of sixteen and the only reason Tony can pretend he isn’t doing it for his dad is because his dad hasn’t said anything about it really. His dad just sort of… expects this sort of thing. It makes Tony _literally_ crazy—there is nothing he can do to impress his dad, so he stopped (consciously) trying ages ago.

His dad is right—Lindsey isn’t very attractive. But she had very nice breasts, and it’s the principle of the matter.

“She breathes funny, too,” Howard says.

Tony tries not to, but he snorts a little. That’s also true.

“Can you imagine what she’d sound like during sex? She’d sound… porcine.” Howard grimaces, which sets Tony off cackling.

It’s true.

Maria glances over at them with a knowing twinkle in her eyes and rolls them heavenward.

Tony comes out of his dark mood a little, enough that he can appreciate the fact that he’s in Dublin. That’s pretty cool.

They take a taxi to the city center since Howard is almost literally made of money.

“I was reading online about different things to do,” Maria says excitedly, pulling out the travel binder she takes with them anytime they go on a vacation. It will be filled with information about local attractions, restaurants, theatre and musical venues and what is playing.

“There’s a wax museum--”

“It’s probably awful,” Tony says.

“And a Natural History museum--”

“Oh please god no,” Howard says.

“And, oh, look at this one! I think you’ll both be interested in this one!” Maria says, rooting around in the binder, then pulling her hand up to reveal an extended middle finger.

They spend the rest of the car journey finding ways to surreptitiously flip each other off. Howard pulls a middle finger out of his coat pocket; Tony finds a middle finger up his nose; Maria finds another middle finger in her purse and applies it to her lips like lipstick.

The check into the hotel and deposit their baggage in the room themselves, because Maria insists on it. “In order to value the labor you buy, you must occasionally labor yourself!”

“I think you just hate me,” Tony says, dragging his suitcase up the stairs (no elevators? Really?).

“Maybe,” she says, kissing him on the cheek to make sure he knows she’s only teasing.

“Do these people have a zoo?” Howard asks. “I really want to see a zebra right now.”

It’s early enough in the day that it’s a feasible idea, so Maria pulls out her binder, locates the zoo, and identifies the route they will need to take.

“Please let’s just take another taxi,” Tony moans.

“Nope! In order to value the luxury you buy, you must occasionally go without it!”

She’s always saying shit like that. It drives Tony _literally_ insane.

So they find the bus that goes to the zoo. It’s actually not awful.

The Dublin zoo is… fascinating. It has a cool lemur exhibit, a cool indoor space for orangutans to hang out (one of the babies is hanging upside down off a lighting grate, apparently asleep), and a big wide open space for Zebras, Giraffes, and assorted gazelle looking things to roam about. There is also…

“Is that a cow?” Howard asks, staring hard at what is obviously a cow.

“And guinea pigs,” Tony says, pointing at a sign further off. Indeed there are guinea pigs, a whole… avalanche of guinea pigs, weebling about a small paddock. And sheep, and goats, and some pigs.

There is an empty paddock with a sleeping cat inside. “Do you reckon it’s an exhibit, or it’s just in there?” Howard asks.

“Look for a sign,” Maria suggests.

The cat is just in there, which is strangely disappointing. Tony suddenly wants a domesticated animal zoo, and then remembers that pet stores are a thing that exist.

There’s also a cool indoor thingy with exotic birds where they’re just sort of in there, and you’re just sort of in there, mingling. Tony spots a pigeon.

“You’re a fucking fraud,” he says to the pigeon, who flaps at him angrily.

“I wanna go back and look at the cow,” Howard says.

So they go back and look at the cow. It starts raining, so they leave shortly after that.

“I love you, cow,” Howard says as they leave.

“Mmmooo-I love you too, Howard!” Tony says in a cow voice. “Come back and milk me!”

Howard slaps him gently upside the head.

They get some ice cream before they leave. When Maria is distracted with her binder, Tony steals her ice cream and runs off with it. “Sometimes in order to appreciate the ice cream you have, you have to go without it, mom!”

“Get back here with my ice cream, you little shit!” she yells after him, but she doesn’t chase after him. She’s laughing, and Howard is smiling, and Tony maybe doesn’t mind so much anymore that he isn’t balls deep in a girl he doesn’t even really like that much.

\--

Dublin’s nice, old and slightly crusty in a way that makes Tony feel cool for just walkin’ down the street. The day after the zoo they do a bunch of tourist crap. They go see the Dublin Spire (“Stiffy by the Liffy” Maria whispers to Tony, who snorts), and the statue of Oscar Wilde (“Cock on the rock,” Maria whispers to Tony, who giggles), and the statue of Molly Malone (“Tart with a cart,” Maria whispers to Tony, who belly laughs until Howard frowns at him and Maria).

After that they go to the wax museum (which sucks as much as Tony thought it would), and the Natural History Museum (which is better than Howard thought it would be).

They do every little touristy thing that Maria can stuff into a day.

“I want to see one play, and then we can call it quits in Dublin and move on,” she says.

The following night they see a production of “Playboy of the Western World” that is actually compelling enough to hold Tony’s attention.

Afterwards they get a drink in a pub that has a giant stone head in the corner. “Whacky,” Tony says, approvingly.

“Drinking age here is sixteen. I know you’re a week off, but how about a Guinness?” Howard asks Tony.

Howard has to know that Tony has already raided his liquor cabinet on numerous occasions, but this is the first time that Howard has proposed they drink together. In a weird way it feels like approval.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, trying to play it cool.

They order a tray of greasy food and drink a couple pints of Guinness (which tastes kind of like cold coffee and ham, but is still oddly refreshing). Maria sips her Cider with a small contented smile.

Tony will die before he admits that he’s actually really… glad, that he’s getting this time. Howard is relaxed in a way he never is, and Maria is enjoying herself in a way that is care free and childlike. Tony feels bitter that he had to wait until he was practically out the door before his parents gave this to him, this easy family thing that he’s craved all his life, but he soaks it in regardless. It will have to last him the rest of his life.

After Dublin they meander up the country, stopping first at the Hill of Tara, which is beautiful and maybe a little bit eerie.

Then they visit the Powerscourt Estate, which is very beautiful. They walk the grounds together, making snarky quips about things, until they reach a small cemetery. All of the headstones are dedicated to pets, and even a draft horse.

“Look, they made a headstone for their cows,” Howard says, voice a little strange.

“What is with you and cows all of a sudden?” Tony asks.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Howard says, walking off quickly. Maria and Tony exchange a glance, eyebrows elevated in mutual disbelief.

“I think he hasn’t come to terms with the fact that you’re leaving home,” Maria says.

“So he’s getting weirdly emotional about cows?” Tony asks.

“Yes,” she says.

They make their way up to Northern Ireland to Ulster to see the Giant’s Causeway, but it’s the beginning of marching season so they kinda leave soon after, heading back to Ireland.

They spend Easter in a pretty B&B, foregoing their traditional ham and potatoes in favor of a nice Italian restaurant down the way. Tony and Howard get drunk together on red wine, and Maria yells at them in the morning when they wake up with hangovers.

Everyone probably says the same fucking thing when they visit Ireland, but Tony can’t help the unoriginality of the thought—Ireland is so, so green. It’s not just a color, though. It’s a feeling in the air, a taste, a smell. You feel it less in the cities, but it’s still there, an electric hum of life under the cobblestones and concrete that becomes a throaty roar as soon as you’re out in the country. Ireland is _alive_ and it’s exhilarating.

Tony sort of gets overwhelmed after a while and checks out. There’s a cave, and then a bunch of rocks in a field, and then a cliff that’s supposed to be cool but is shrouded in fog when they’re there.

They’ve all been doing well so far, but now they’re starting to get tired and a little snappy with each other. Tony settles into the bitterness gratefully, unaccustomed to the family bliss. He was starting to feel wigged out, like maybe his parents were dying and they weren’t telling him.

“I don’t want to,” Tony says, folding his arms.

“Come on, it’s perfect! Just stand inside long enough for me to get one picture!” Maria wheedles.

They’re standing in yet another field that could be put on a calendar, or used in a new agey music video. There are rocks that are old (all of the rocks they’ve seen so far have been old—Tony would like to see some new rocks, maybe), but Maria is more interested in the ring of mushrooms that stand brilliant white against the green.

“Suck it up and be nice to your mom,” Howard says in a tone of voice that Tony hates.

“You suck it up! Aren’t those things supposed to be bad luck?”

“They’re fucking mushrooms!” Howard yells.

“Fine. Fucking FINE,” Tony yells, stomping forward into the circle. He unfolds his arms and smiles long enough for his mom to get a pic, then he stomps back out, kicking at a couple mushrooms as he goes.

They leave, each of them quiet and unhappy.

Small, wicked eyes watch them go.


	2. You might disappear.

The most annoying thing about Tony’s parents is that they’re hypocrites. Both of his parents have a very strict view of how things should be and who Tony should be, and neither are willing to see Tony as who he really is or give him room to become himself. Howard thinks that Tony should immediately obey every directive he gives, but the number of times that Tony has witnessed— _witnessed with his own eyes_ —Howard ignoring direct orders from the _U.S. Government_ is more than he has appendages to count on. Maria thinks that Tony shouldn’t date until he’s graduated college, somehow forgetting that she gave birth to Tony when she was _sixteen._

So, naturally, there are a lot of fights _._ This is the longest that they’ve gone without a really good one, though. Nearly two weeks have passed since Howard has been angry enough to get in a screaming match with Tony, or Maria upset enough to start wailing, or Tony fed up enough to storm out after calling his father a horrible name. It’s excruciating.

They’re in a small ocean side town that Tony hasn’t bothered to remember the name of, in the hotel dining room, when shit finally, blessedly hits the fan. The pressure has been building for a while, and Tony has been waiting for it to break like a sailor eyeing a storm.

It’s a good old fashioned Stark Family Fight and it’s nasty, and raw, and Tony gets a lot of really good hits in before Howard hits him with the “I’m disappointed in you” face. That’s the cue to storm off, so Tony does his duty and runs off into the night after calling Howard a “fascist asshole”.

There’s nowhere to go, really, since it is a _very_ small town, but that doesn’t matter. Anywhere that’s ‘away’ will serve Tony’s needs just fine. He’s riding high on the adrenaline of the moment, feeling righteous in his anger.

He spots a wooded park, lit by the orange glow of street lamps. A fog is beginning to roll inwards from the ocean, curled fingers of mist dancing on the edges of the haloed light. There is a playground a little ways off the path, rusty climbing bars and slides and swings on astro-turf. Tony heads for the swing set and sits down, kicking his feet against the springy rubber beneath.

The air is cold and slightly moist, but the heat of Tony’s anger keeps the chill at bay. It smells like rain-wet earth and newly mown grass. The ocean is a salty, bitter smell that comes in with the fog and rests on his tongue, pungent and strange.

He can’t even remember what the fight was about, really. Again, it doesn’t matter. All fights are the same fight, the subtext of which is:

_Tony: You don’t appreciate anything I do, you don’t notice me unless I’m doing something bad, and you’ve never told me you're proud of me even once._

_Howard: I’m too awesome to have to do any of that stuff, you should be able to get it all from your mother, why do you make my life so hard, I wish you were never born._

_Maria: I’m going to downplay your father’s role in this, but afterwards I’ll pretend that I might agree with you._

“Oooh, my god I wish I didn’t have to go back,” Tony mumbles, resting his forehead against the cold metal of the chain. “He’s going to be such a bastard about this…”

The wind picks up, howling through the trees and scattering leaves. Tony closes his eyes and spins the swing so his back is to the violent gust, until it dies down. Then he lets the swing spin him back around, and nearly falls off in surprise when he sees the dark figure standing just outside the pool of light in front of him.

“Whoa, shit man, you scared me!” Tony yells, surprise turning into a little bit of defensive anger. “Jesus…”

“Apologies,” says the man. He has a light Irish accent (maybe a Dublin accent, which seems to be the most neutral of the Irish accents that Tony’s heard so far), voice young but deep. He steps forward into the light and Tony sees that the man is about his age, maybe a year older. Long dark hair, pale angular face, really weird green velvet suit and a gold satin top hat. “It’s not a good night to be out on your own, you know.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Right, yeah, I’m gonna take advice from the Irish Willy Wonka. Thank you, but please leave me alone.”

The man giggles, covering his mouth with a long fingered hand. “You’re a bold one. They love to break the bold ones, you know. If you were smart you’d pretend to be meek, but I can see you aren’t smart.”

“Fuck you! I have a genius level IQ!” Tony shouts, standing up off the swing. He much shorter than the man, but he knows how to fight, and his newly added muscle mass makes him more of a threat than he looks.

“I’m sure in your world you do. You know nothing of mine, though. In my world you have the IQ of a stunned fish, and about as much use,” the man says, giggling again.

“Whatever. Go away,” Tony says, sitting back down on the swing. This man is an idiot. Probably crazy, too.

“Your care and upkeep with likely fall to my shoulders, once my queen tires of you,” says the man, sighing in exasperation. “So, I will try to teach you a little now, to ease my trouble later on. First,” the man holds up a finger, “never be rude. We hate rudeness, especially from humans.”

Full on crazy then. Tony is actually starting to feel a little scared, because he’s never dealt with full on crazy like this before. He pulls out his phone as unobtrusively as possible and texts his dad behind his back. Three letters: SOS

The man holds up a second finger. “Second, never say ‘I wish…’ because it’s an invitation to give you what you ask for. We might not grant your wish, but if we do you won’t like it.”

The man holds up a third finger. “Never eat from our table. Our food isn’t meant for you.”

Fourth finger. “Don’t thank anyone for anything. Say ‘you are generous’ or ‘you are kind’, but never thank anyone, because it implies a debt owed.”

Fifth finger “Always accept our gifts, but never trust them.”

Sixth finger. “Don’t give your name to anyone but your master, although in your case that’s a moot point already. We’re all aware of your name, Tony Stark, son of the famous Howard Stark.”

Seventh finger “Don’t stand in fairy circles. Honestly, even _you_ knew that one and you still did it. Doesn’t speak well of that intelligence you seem to be so proud of.”

 _This man has been watching me_ , Tony realizes. Tony suddenly knows what’s going on. This happened to him once before, when he was seven.

Tony raises his chin, staring at the man with defiance. “You can try to kidnap me for ransom, asshole, but my father wised up after the last time. He installed multiple tracking chips on me. So go ahead, bundle me into a van, leave a nasty note. An hour later he’ll be at your doorstep with a whole team of armed men, ready to beat your fucking face in.”

The man blinks at him, then starts laughing. “Oh you silly boy, you think we want money? No, no. We want _you_! Or the queen does, anyway. She loves beautiful young boys, and you are beautiful indeed. Anyway, how will your father know that you are missing when he thinks you are still with him?”

The man snaps his fingers and another figure steps out of the darkness from behind him. They step into the light and Tony's heart stops. He looks just like Tony, down to every stitch of clothing, every artful rip in his jeans.

“How?” Tony asks hollowly.

“If you were smarter than a stunned fish you would know already,” says the man in the green velvet suit. “But since you aren’t I’ll tell you _how_. Look at me, Tony,” the man says. His eyes start glowing bright green. “It’s _magic.”_

Then the man snaps his fingers once more and the world fades away into nothingness.

\--

The changeling watches Tony and the Queen’s Púca disappear. It almost feels bad for Tony. That Púca is particularly vicious; he’s eaten the last seven boys to fall out of the Queen’s favor.

And the boys always fall out of the Queen’s favor, eventually.

But that thought, like many thoughts in the mind of a fae, is fleeting and blows away with the ocean breeze.

Changeling magic is strange and powerful. The changeling has some, but not all of Tony’s memories. He knows enough to know important details about Tony’s life, the nature of relationships and connections with other people, names, dates of important life events. But the rest of it is inaccessible. What the changeling lacks is Tony’s soul, his innermost thoughts and driving desires, which no amount of magic can replace or mimic. No, mimicry is up to the skill of each changeling, and this changeling is old and experienced.

He wanders back to the hotel and runs into Howard outside, literally. Howard comes running out the front and knocks into the changeling, nearly knocking both of them down.

“Are you alright?” Howard asks, frantically, running his hands over the changeling, checking for damage.

Oh, the message the boy sent. SOS. A warning? Must be.

“Yeah, yeah, I… I wandered into the park and someone tried to mug me. I got away, though,” the changeling lies, quickly.

“Oh… Good,” Howard says, taking a step back.

Tony’s relationship with Howard isn’t great, the changeling knows this much.

A changeling’s instinct is to seek acceptance, to do whatever it takes to become loved. That is how you ensure you aren’t kicked out of the nest prematurely. So the changeling does what it does best; it smooths the waters, it makes itself likable.

“I’m sorry, dad,” the changeling says. “I… I know you want the best for me. I know that you and mom just want me to have a good life. I’m going to try to start taking your advice…”

The changeling hangs its head a little, showing vulnerability. It knows a parent’s instinct is to comfort, to respond to the needs of its young. Howard obviously loves Tony. This should be very easy.

“Are you high?” Howard asks, instead. The changeling looks up, mouth agape.

“What?”

“Are you high, Tony?” Howard asks, frowning.

“No!” the changeling sputters. “I just… we’d been having such a good time together, I didn’t… I’m sorry for ruining it by fighting. Dad.”

Howard looks even more suspicious. “Right, okay. Right. Well… apology accepted, I guess. Come inside, your mother is very upset.”

“Right, okay,” the changeling says, following Howard inside.

 _A mother is much easier to manipulate_ , the changeling thinks gratefully. _I can win this back. If she's happy, Howard will be happy_.

Maria is back at the room. She stands up when Tony comes in, eyes red.

“I’m sorry mom,” Tony says. “I’m… I’ll try to do better. You guys were right, and I’m sorry that I was--”

Maria is frowning. “Are you high?”

The changeling sputters again. “No! I’m just… can’t I just apologize? I feel bad about ruining our trip with such a stupid fight!”

He sees Maria mouth ‘stupid fight?’ over her shoulder at Howard, expression incredulous. She turns back to Tony, eyeing him suspiciously. “Alright, okay. Thank you, Tony. Apology accepted.”

But she doesn’t look happy. Neither Howard nor Maria look happy at all.

 _This… might actually be harder than I thought_ , the changeling thinks. Then dismisses the thought.

His bed is in a small adjoining room and he gets in, curling up in the big, comfortable space. It’s so much nicer than what he’s used to (cold floor, thin blanket, surrounded by the other changelings who are too loud and too smelly to sleep with). This is why he loves taking these jobs. A good fifty to sixty years of relative luxury if you’re lucky, if you play your cards right, if you’re clever and quick. Sometimes eighty or a hundred years, these days. The jobs just keep getting longer as the humans figure out their own system of magic. Vaccines and nutrition, technology and philosophy. It’s brilliant.

Not that anyfae other than a changeling would agree or understand.

 _I don’t ever want to go back again_ , he thinks, a warm contentment making his limbs heavy and soft.

The changeling falls asleep, surrounded by an empty, silent room and the delicate chemical smell of detergent.


	3. Don't be rude to the fae.

The bright court does not have a physical location.

But if it did it would exist in the sun beams where dust dances slow; small bodies of water that are born in the spring, which give birth to frogs and mosquitos, and then die in the heat of summer; small clearings in the forest that stir your blood to remember what it once was to be feral and free; there at a highway rest stop in the middle of nowhere, slowly being reclaimed by nature.

It’s rare that the bright court exists in the cities of man, but sometimes it does; the bright court is there, in the small patch of grass that you can see out of the window of your grey, florescent office; or there, in the empty doorway of your childhood home; in that alleyway that is home to the discarded and disregarded; the empty stairwell of a hospital just after your mother has died.

This lack of permanence can make it very hard to transport things that are used to being real in a _literal_ sense into the bright court (such as handsome young mortal men), since literally real things tend not to do well with becoming figurative. If transported incorrectly they tend to turn into a very unappealing slime made of incomprehensible mixed metaphors and malapropisms.

Loki, the Queen’s Puck, has not caused a Code Dogberry in nearly 500 years of absconding with humans.

He is her brightest pupil, even if he’s from the dark court. Soon he will finish his apprenticeship with her, and will return to the dark court to take his place as its king.

This is the bargain between the bright and dark court—each new monarch is trained by the reigning monarch of the other court. This arrangement is beneficial in that it keeps the peace by distributing knowledge efficiently, creating ties of friendship, and encouraging collaboration which is essential for survival in a time when mortal men are slowly eating the world up.

The downside is that Loki will eventually have to train Queen Frigga’s golden headed idiot son, Thor, once he claims the dark throne. Thor is the most literal minded, useless excuse for a fae that Loki has ever seen. Very good at fighting and summoning thunder, not very good at hiding or lying. It’s a wonder Thor hasn’t died yet from his own incompetence, or offended someone so bad that they are forced to kill him.

But that is tomorrow’s trouble. Today, Loki is delivering the latest mortal to spark Frigga’s interest, a rude little boy with warm brown eyes and mischief in his smile. Loki rarely appreciates mortal beauty, and certainly his tastes run very different to Frigga’s, but he has to admit that the rude little Tony Stark is charming.

Loki shifts them sideways from the park into his workshop. It is a magpie’s nest of magic items and ingredients—shelves full of glittering gems, polished animal skulls, feathers, dried flowers, dead candles and live chickens. Messy, chaotic, dangerous. Home away from home.

Loki turns to relish the look of surprise and fear on Tony’s face, but Tony surprises him by tackling him to the ground and landing two good punches before Loki can wrest back control. He flips Tony over and pins his arms to the ground.

“Take me back,” Tony shouts, livid instead of fearful. Fascinating.

“No,” Loki says, smiling wide in glee as Tony thrashes violently, trying to knee Loki in the groin. This is new! None of Frigga’s boys have ever put up such a fight before.

“What are you?” Tony asks, stilling for a moment but still wrathful.

“What do you think I am?” Loki is genuinely curious to hear what the mortal thinks.

Tony is silent for a moment, assessing Loki. Then he sneers, surprisingly venomous. “It’s Ireland and you’ve got a stupid hat, so I’d guess Leprechaun?”

“Pathetic,” says Loki, slightly disappointed. “Also, mind your tongue. Remember what I told you about rudeness.”

“Fuck you,” Tony breathes, then he spits in Loki’s face.

Loki is speechless, staring down at Tony with wide eyes. Tony’s spit drips down his cheek a little, warm and smelling slightly of sour beer.

Unprecedented. Loki is deciding how to respond when Thor bursts into his workshop.

“Brother!” he bellows happily, galloping in uninvited and scooping Loki up in his arms for a bone crushing hug. “You have returned! I missed you!”

Tony scrambles to his feet while Loki hisses in annoyance. “Thor, I’m in the middle of something!”

Thor blinks slowly, looking over at Tony, who stares back with something close to fear on his face. Loki is slightly jealous that Thor--harmless, useless Thor--has impressed the boy where Loki has failed to.

A large, sappy smile spreads across Thor’s face. “He’s so cute!” he cries, dropping Loki and wandering over to pick up Tony instead. “He has cow’s eyes! Look how soft and docile they are!” Thor is petting Tony’s hair.

Tony is letting him.

Loki is furious. “Enough! Let him down, _oaf_.”

Thor does as Loki commands, but his cheerfulness is not diminished in the least by Loki’s tone. It never is.

“Mother will love him, I can tell. I’ll go make sure there is a place set aside for him,” Thor says, helpfully. “I am glad you are home, brother,” he adds, before trotting off with purpose.

Loki looks over at Tony, who looks as bewildered and appalled as Loki feels. “That’s your brother?” Tony asks.

Loki hisses again in frustration. “No, no he is _not;_ we aren’t even the same _species_. He refuses to see reason. That boy is as stupid as a pig.”

“Pigs aren’t stupid,” Tony says, with the familiar tone of a know-it-all. “They have a near human level of intelligence.”

“My point exactly,” Loki says, smiling primly. “Enough, it’s time to get you ready.”

“Ready for what exactly?” Tony says, anger returning to his voice. “I’m not going to play along with this bullshit. You are going to return me to my parents, _now_.”

Loki snorts and snaps his fingers. A golden band appears in his hands and he quickly puts it around Tony’s neck, letting it weave itself into a sizable collar, knots twisting themselves as the spell takes over.

“Get this off of me!” screams Tony, eyes wild with fear, clawing ineffectually at it.

“That keeps you safe,” Loki explains. “If you didn’t have that you’d dissolve, become a little pile of puns and portmanteaus.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” Tony says, breathing harshly. “Seriously, you need to get this off me, I can’t handle having things around my neck.” He inhales deeply. “Please,” he says, through gritted teeth.

“You must learn to deal with discomfort. Your life no longer belongs to you,” Loki says, not without sympathy. The queen is kind for a fae, but she is fickle. She will discard the boy, forget him, like a broken toy.

“My life is mine,” Tony says firmly. “This stupid dog collar doesn’t change that.”

Absurd.

“That stupid dog collar changes everything, little boy,” Loki says, limited patience reaching its end. Really, the rebelliousness was charming at first, but now it’s just annoying. “Now we take you to the groomers,” he says, snapping his fingers. A thin gold chain sprouts from the collar and speeds towards Loki’s waiting hand. He is not in the mood to chase a little boy around the castle.

“I will find a way to kill you,” Tony promises darkly, falling into step behind Loki instead of trying to pull away. _Brave boy_ , Loki thinks. _Stupid, brave little boy._

“I would love to watch you try,” Loki says over his shoulder.

The groomers, a brownie and a boggart whose names Loki has never bothered to remember, fuss over Tony for an hour. The boggart (a tall, dark, fearsome looking creature with a wooden arm and a dark mask that covers his entire face) primps Tony’s hair into a pleasingly disheveled coif, placing small white flowers here and there. The brownie (a short, thin little creature with golden hair and a determined chin) measures Tony efficiently, and sets about spinning him a jacket of golden cobwebs, embroidering it with little blue bees. Leggings of soft lambskin of the correct size are selected and laced up. Lips are brightened with red pigment, eyes are lined with smoke, lids shaded with bronze.

The boy is breathtaking, Loki realizes.

The boy is also furious. “Kill. You,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Thank the groomers and we’ll be on our way,” Loki says, tugging the leash impatiently.

The boggart and brownie look at Tony expectantly and Tony thanks them with downcast eyes. Respectful, sincere thanks. Not even a hint of bitterness, just a gentle humility. The brownie smiles warmly at Tony. The boggart is hard to read, but he isn’t trying to crush Tony’s skull, so his opinion of the boy is probably similarly favorable.

This is fascinating—will Tony give his respect to everyone in the castle _except_ Loki?

One last stop at the garden.

“Pick a present for the queen,” Loki commands.

“How about you pick my ass?” Tony hisses back, folding his arms petulantly.

Loki raises his eyebrow, unimpressed. “I know you are capable of manners, I have seen it myself not ten minutes ago, and yet you repeatedly fail to speak to me with the respect I am due. Do you think I will not retaliate, just because you are a favorite of the queen?”

Tony looks at him, a hard look that makes Loki feel slightly exposed, despite himself.

“I’ve spent my entire life around politicians, lawyers, and businessmen. I know how to manipulate _anyone_. Anyone except my father, maybe.  But I can read people; I know what they want. You might be magic, but you’re just as transparent as the rest of them. You don’t want me to whimper and whine at you. You don’t want me to be nice and pliable.” Tony gets in Loki’s space, and even though he’s short and not nearly as powerful as Loki, Loki is… intimidated. Tony grins, a sharp thing the like of which would be more at home on the face of a sharp fanged pixie or a treacherous goblin. “I’m giving you what you want,” he breathes.

Then he steps back out of Loki’s space and casts a calculating eye around the garden.

It is a wild space, full of fruit trees, ivy clad walls and moss covered stones, and flowers in a breathtaking variety of shapes and colors.

Usually the new boys, shaken and tumbled about, lost and frightened, pick large bouquets of the brightest flowers with shaking hands, trying to please a queen they’ve never met by imagining their own mother, or the mother they wished to have.

Tony calmly selects a single snowdrop that he finds hidden behind a rosebush.

“Ready,” he says, frowning at Loki with palpable malice.

Loki plucks at the gold chain, tightening his grip on it, and leads Tony out of the garden and towards the throne room to meet Queen Frigga.

 _Treacherous, dangerous little boy,_ Loki thinks.

\--

The changeling is having a very hard time of it.

The Starks are impossible to understand. The more pleasant he becomes, the more suspicious they are. The more he apologizes, the unhappier they look. He has never encountered a family like this before.

“Tony, where should we go next?” Maria asks, opening the map and spreading it out for him. Howard is off drinking in the bar, and as such is not being consulted.

The changeling looks at the map considering his answer, trying to predict what will please Maria most. She has been expressing an interest in shopping recently, so he suggests they go to a slightly larger city in County Wicklow that’s sure to have more shops that she will like.

His considerate answer brings tears to Maria’s eyes, but not in a good way.

“Tony, what’s going on with you? You’re so… docile, and… non-confrontational. Are you feeling… Tony, are you feeling suicidal?” Maria asks, tears streaming down her face.

The changeling is gob smacked.

“Why can’t I try to be nice? Why are you guys so down on me all the time?” The changeling shouts, jumping to his feet and pulling at his hair in frustration. “I’m trying so hard and you guys are constantly… constantly shitting on me!”

 _Oh god_ , he thinks, wishing he could take it all back. He turns to look at Maria, terrified that he’ll see anger or pain on her face. Instead there is relief.

“It’s just not like you, Tony, that’s all. We were scared,” Maria says. “I’ll try to give you some slack.”

She pats his arm. “I’m going to join your father at the bar. We’ll see you later for dinner, okay?”

“Okay mom,” the changeling says, waving at her vaguely.

He sits in his room and thinks carefully, and comes to three important conclusions.

1\. Being nice makes them mad.

2\. Shouting and cursing makes them happy.

_3\. These people are fucking crazy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration for Tony's look comes from these pictures:
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	4. Or they'll take your heart.

Howard Stark has four rules for negotiating with “hostiles”—a term he uses to describe Stark Tech stockholders, angry government officials, and tantruming terrorists alike.

The four rules are:

  1. Identify the meanest, most powerful bastard in the room and berate them.
  2. Identify the weaker subordinates and placate them.
  3. Loudly and repeatedly demand what you want.
  4. Rinse and repeat until desired effect is achieved.



There was one other rule that applied to dealing with anybody and that rule was:

  1. Show no fear, under any circumstances.



Among Howard’s many deficiencies as a father being absent was not one of them (at least before Tony was old enough to be carted off to a boarding school). Howard took him to board meetings, briefings if they were unclassified, shop floor walkthroughs—anywhere he could get away with taking Tony (which was pretty much everywhere).

In fact, before Tony was school aged he spent a significant majority of his time with Howard, perched on Howard’s hip as he reviewed blueprints or yelled at employees. Tony witnessed the four rules in action many, many times.

Even when they were at home and Maria could take over, Howard would choose to keep Tony near. When Howard needed to spend some time in the lab he would set Tony up at a little workstation of his own.

Tony had been excited to “invent” things, just like his dad, until Howard had declared Tony’s first attempt at building a robot “dreadful!” However, when Tony finished wailing from embarrassment, Howard spent two hours showing Tony how to solder properly. Tony was six years old. It all seemed normal at the time, but Tony has since discovered that it is very unusual for a parent to allow a child of that age to be in the same _room_ as a soldering iron, much less let them use it unsupervised.

So Howard is not a good father, but as Tony is dragged along a twisting corridor, in what appears to be a ruined castle, by the magic bastard who is currently holding his leash, Tony realizes that he’d pick Howard to be his father every time. Who else could have prepared him, even a little, for this level of insanity? It’s not even the first time that Tony has been kidnapped, for fuck’s sake.

Yes, Tony feels fear, of course he does. This is a dangerous situation and aspects of it are very much outside his realm of experience, what with the doppelgangers and wizards and guys with scary enchanted wooden arms and hand woven clothing in less than an hour.

But he still feels a level of control and agency because he’s talked himself out of a hostage situation before, and that was when he was only seven. He would be falling apart right now if Howard had been even _slightly_ less insane.

Magic bastard comes to a stop in front of a pair of giant wooden doors, out of which appears to grow a tree. Golden leaves drift downwards, collecting in soft piles on either side.

“Queen Frigga can be a good mistress, if you behave yourself. Don’t make her angry, under any circumstances. She will not tolerate your rudeness like I have,” magic bastard says. He looks very serious suddenly.

“And if I’m rude?” Tony asks, raising an eyebrow.

Magic bastard leans closer, resting a hand on his shoulder. “One time the King failed to pay his due respects. She plucked his eye out for the offense. _Do not test her_ , little boy.”

With that information Tony reassesses everything and realizes that Queen Frigga is probably the biggest bastard in the room. Tony bites his lip, reviewing his father’s rules, searching for a loophole. There are only four rules though, and they are very straightforward.

He starts by placating the subordinates. He swallows his pride and summons a genuine enough “thank you”, nodding at magic bastard, before squaring his shoulders and turning to face the door. Magic bastard gapes at him for a moment, no doubt bewildered by the sudden change in tone. Then he opens the doors and ushers Tony inside.

She’s breathtaking, is Tony’s first thought. Just genuinely the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen—classic Botticelli features, gold hair (like, it actually looks gold, he’s not just trying to find a fancy way to say her hair is yellow), gold eyes, skin like alabaster. Her hand is extended towards him, beckoning him forwards, like a living Madonna. She smiles gently, lovingly, radiating a sense of peace and calm, and he yearns to sit by her side and gaze at her adoringly.

 _Wait a minute_ … he thinks. _Yearn?  I’ve never “yearned” for anything in my entire life, and certainly not for something so boring._

He has a suspicion that he can’t shake, the confirmation of which he dreads.

“Are you fucking around in my head with magic?” he asks with a frown, adopting a power stance to hide his nerves—legs slightly parted, hands on his hips. “There’s some thoughts in here that don’t exactly feel like mine. I think you’re fucking with my head.”

Queen Frigga blinks rapidly, losing some of the peace and calm. He feels the magic bastard tense up at his side.

She gathers herself again immediately, smiling gently. “I’ve picked a clever boy, I see. Come to me, Tony. I will give you everything you desire.” She opens her arms wide to him and he wants to fold himself into her embrace, take comfort from the shelter of her body.

“No I don’t,” Tony says out loud. “I don’t want to be touched by you, lady. I want you to send me home, right now.”

The smile disappears completely. “This _is_ home, Tony. I have rescued you and you will spend the rest of your life at my side, pleasuring me and being pleasured in return.”

Tony’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh my god, is this a sex thing? Of course it’s a sex thing, I’m wearing a collar. Jesus Christ, lady! What the hell? I don’t want to have sex with you, I’m still a kid! You’re disgusting!”

“We’re thought forms, _we don’t have genitals_!” the magic bastard hisses at him. “Shut up, _now_.” He looks genuinely scared.

Tony feels the fear under his skin, a wave of heat and cold spreading everywhere, prickling at his scalp, making his heart race, but he refuses to let it control him. He will follow his father’s rules and he will escape, just like he did last time. Tony turns back to Frigga.

“Send me home. Now. I won’t tell you again.”

“You dare…” Frigga breathes, rising to her full and not inconsiderable height (she’s nearly as tall as the magic bastard), “you dare to call _me,_ the _bright queen_ , disgusting?”

“Ooh god,” the magic bastard says under his breath.

“What else would you call someone who kidnaps children and tries to have sex with them?” Tony challenges. “You have been incredibly rude to me, sending this one after me,” Tony points at magic bastard, “taking my things without permission, ‘grooming’ me without my permission. I was given to understand that you fae place a lot of value on manners, and yet you seem to possess none!”

“Manners?” the Queen asks quietly, slowly moving closer. Tony can smell her now—lightning and blood, predator and death. He resists the urge to flinch or swallow thickly.

“I’ll accept your apology and then you can send me back to my parents,” Tony says, folding his arms.

The magic bastard makes a muted noise of agony.

Queen Frigga smiles—

Sharp, pointed, blood flecked teeth are bared between her perfect lips.

She reaches forward an elegant hand, pressing it to his chest, then—

Pressing into his chest, her hand passing through skin, muscle, bone, until his heart is in her fist.

“Beg me,” she breathes. “Beg me for forgiveness and I will give it to you, child. I can be so merciful. I could make you so happy—I could give you everything. Just… beg me.”

Her hand is around his heart and she must be able to feel his fear. She presses into his thoughts, trying to bend his will.

_I must say sorry, I really am very sorry, I love her, I don’t want to hurt her, I’ve been horrible and I must apologize—_

Tony lifts his chin, summoning his father’s bravery, his mother’s nerve.

“You get nothing from me but what you take, you abominable bitch,” he says. Then he takes a giant, defiant step backwards, leaving his heart in her hand.

\--

Howard and Maria sit with each other at the bar in silence, neither of them drinking their whiskey.

In his youth Howard had been a slut, hopping in and out of bed with any pair of legs willing to spread for him. Then he met Maria when he was seventeen and she was sixteen, and had realized she was perfect for him right about the time she was knocking his teeth in with an angry fist, after he’d tried to feel her up during a date.

She made him laugh, she didn’t take his shit, and she knew what she wanted out of life.

First time they banged she got pregnant with Tony, but they already knew they were going to spend the rest of their lives together anyway, so it was just a matter of rearranging their life schedules as opposed to something devastating. They were both from rich families, anyway. It had worked out.

Tony was perfect, of course. Brilliant, commanding, aggressive—at age six he was building robots, and at age seven he was negotiating his own hostage exchange, berating grown men with guns and distracting them long enough for the SWAT team to arrive. Howard couldn’t have been prouder.

Howard also couldn’t… _communicate_ just how proud he was. He tried, but the words always went away.

But Tony didn’t seem to need that, he kept achieving and dazzling everyone with his… his Tony-ness. Howard was smitten with the boy, couldn’t imagine loving someone more, even when Tony was pinpointing ways to make Howard seethe.

Which is why it’s so hard for Howard to admit the thoughts going through his mind.

“I don’t think that’s my son up there,” Howard says, finally getting the strength to say it out loud to Maria. “Tony has never apologized for a damn thing in his entire life, certainly not to _me_. It goes against everything I’ve ever taught him.”

Maria sighs. “Howard, you realize that’s… it’s insane. He doesn’t have a secret twin! I would know, I was there the entire time I was giving birth to him!”

“I know, but tell me you weren’t thinking the same thing. Tell me that something doesn’t seem off!”

Maria can’t.

“Howard, it can’t be anybody else. He’s being very weird, I’ll give you that, but… it’s Tony.”

“Mom? Dad?” Howard turns around as Tony walks into the small bar area, winding his way through tables to get to the bar.

It looks like his son. Every freckle is in place, every scar. Maria’s nose, Howard’s ears.

But he knows with every fiber of his being that it’s not his son.

“Hey, Tony,” Howard says with a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. “How’re you feeling, son?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Considering shifting to a Wednesday schedule. We'll see. I'm going to try to update this Friday, still, though.


	5. Don't reject a gift from the fae

Loki catches the boy’s body as it falls to the ground—not lifeless, just… empty of Tony.

Frigga stares at the boy, suppressing a small smirk. “Willful little chap, isn’t he?” she says, sounding amused. She tilts her head and looks at Loki. “I think he’s more suited to you, don’t you?”

Loki sighs. “I’ve told you before I don’t want a pet, and I certainly won’t take your cast offs.”

“I think it’s obvious that I didn’t cast him off. He cast himself off, rather enthusiastically,” she stares down at her hand which holds Tony’s (figurative) heart. It glows brightly, dazzlingly, like a blue star. “I’ve never seen one so bright,” she says, admiringly.

Loki huffs impatiently. “Put it back so I can send him on his way.”

“You won’t eat this one?” Frigga asks, failing to hide her smirk this time.

Loki knows what the lesser fae say about him, that he eats the “cast offs.” He is happy to encourage the rumors as they inspire a certain amount of awe that will serve him well later on. Only Frigga knows what he really does with the humans who are no longer able or willing to stay by her side.

“I’m certain he’d give me indigestion,” Loki says drily.

“Mmm, maybe I’ll eat him then,” Frigga says, tossing Tony’s heart up in the air like it is a toy. The irreverence with which she treats something so precious irks him, but he stays calm.

“Give me that if you won’t put it back properly,” he says, setting Tony down delicately and holding his hand out. “I’ll do it myself.”

Frigga tosses Tony’s heart to Loki, who catches it.

As soon as it touches his hand he’s flooded with images, feelings, thoughts, each of them brilliant and painful like flames. He falls to his knees, overwhelmed. It’s like swallowing the ocean.

 _This is Tony’s soul_? Loki thinks, incredulously. _How can this fit in such a tiny body?_

An eternity in an instant and Loki resurfaces, gasping for breath. “What… what the hell--”

“If you’d taken a familiar earlier like I told you to, or even studied the texts I recommended to you centuries ago, you’d know what happens when you touch a human soul,” Frigga scolds. “You’re too old to be so ignorant.”

“You… tricked me,” Loki says, horrified. He looks down at Tony’s soul in his hand, terrified by its power.

“Yes. Now you have a choice—you can let him go, let that bright, beautiful boy leave now that you have seen what lies within… or you can keep him, make him your familiar, and finally learn the lessons you have been unwilling to learn.” Frigga spreads her hands wide, smiling with too much self-satisfaction.

Loki glares at her, mutinous. “I don’t want to keep him. I’ve told you before that I’m powerful enough without little humans running around under foot.” But his eyes are drawn to Tony, betraying his longing. Such a glorious mind, so much to explore. Like seeing a new world, a world that he could have a hand in shaping if he could convince Tony to share it with him.

Frigga rolls her eyes. “Power isn’t what you need, you daft bastard. But fine, when his parents complete the trial you can send him back.”

Loki looks up at Frigga in alarm. “Trial?”

“Yes, the Changeling Trial,” she says, expression serious enough, but twinkling mischief dancing in her eyes. “The one that no one ever wins.”

“You… that’s a formality, though. We don’t have to actually go through with it. I can go retrieve the changeling, switch them out again,” Loki says, slightly desperate.

“Absolutely not. Those changelings have rights too, you know,” Frigga says sternly. “They are given a month, and if they are not discovered before that month is up they are allowed to take the human’s place for as long as they can survive. One entire month; you aren’t allowed to meddle.”

“But that’s not fair!” Loki cries. “I don’t… I don’t have time for this, Frigga!”

“Mm, let’s hope Tony’s parents are as clever as they seem, then,” she says. “In any case, I don’t want him as a familiar. If you don’t take him, then you must find another place for him. I leave it in your capable hands. Consider it a gift.”

She vanishes then, leaving Loki sitting aghast on the floor next to Tony’s inert body, the soul thrumming gently in his hand. If he listens hard enough he thinks he can hear a melody, like the thin pulling of strings which come before the swell of a symphony. Tony is full of potential, drowning in it. Loki gazes at him, contemplating what it would be like to try and win such a mind.

It would end in utter rejection, of course. The minds that Loki could win are the minds he would never want. Why should he try? Why should he humiliate himself for such an unattainable prize?

But if he could win Tony, such a partnership would be glorious. Loki’s power and Tony’s mind combined would be strong enough to stop the erosion of both the Seelie and Unseelie courts, maybe even reverse it a little. If they could regain the lands of Nod…

Loki sighs and rubs his eyes a little.

“Frigga,” he growls. He admires his teacher, respects her in a way that he respects no one else, but she is infuriating when she decides that Loki needs to learn something he has no interest in, nor need for. It’s not necessary to take human familiars, regardless of whatever she says about symbiosis. Humans aren’t necessary—they’re just convenient.

Loki gently places the soul back in Tony's chest, then lifts the boy in his arms and carries him out of the throne room with no destination in mind. Eventually his feet find the path for his workshop, a familiar route and a reasonable enough destination. There is a little cot in there for the rare occasions that Loki desires oblivion. He sets Tony down and steps back, considering his options.

Thor comes bursting into his workshop, interrupting Loki’s rumination.

“Brother! Frigga has announced the good news! You have finally given up on your foolish ideas and found a familiar!” Thor booms, lifting Loki in his arms and ignoring Loki’s growl of annoyance and pain.

“Everything you say is incorrect,” Loki says tetchily, once he’s extricated himself from Thor’s embrace. “I am not your brother, my ideas are not foolish, and I do not have a familiar!”

Thor frowns. “Is Tony not adequate? Mother says he has the most imagination she’s ever sensed in a human. He could help you make a whole court of new Unseelie! He could win back the Lands of Nod!”

“She said all that, did she?” Loki asks, incredibly annoyed. He turns his back on Thor, hoping in vain that indifference will dampen Thor’s mood and make him leave.

“Well, not all of that. I inferred the rest after she spoke so well of his imagination. Brother, you owe it to our people to at least try,” Thor says, uncharacteristically serious. Loki is surprised at the tone in his voice and turns to look at Thor.

“Do I not owe it more to my people to find a way to become independent? To sustain ourselves without fragile bonds to a people who are rapidly forgetting us?”

“The humans need us as much as we need them,” Thor says solemnly. “It is not… it’s not right to abandon them, my brother. I know you want to find a new world, but we should focus our efforts on fixing the one we have now.”

“You’re a fool, Thor,” Loki says dismissively.

Thor sighs. “Perhaps. I was not made to be clever like you, I suppose. I just know what my heart says, and it says that we must have hope.”

“Go back to your revelry and leave me to my thoughts,” Loki says. Thor finally does what he says, turning back to look at Tony once more before leaving.

 Loki looks at Tony and sighs. “You are already causing me problems. Maybe I _should_ eat you.”

Instead, Loki calls for ale, and spends the rest of the night trying to forget what it felt like to hold a soul.

\--

The changeling spends a pleasant day with Howard and Maria. It tries bickering with Howard, just in case that’s still something he’s expected to do, but it seems that Maria has explained… something, and Howard is happy just to spend a pleasant time with his family. They hike a little in the picturesque Wicklow Mountains and have a picnic. Howard and Maria sit down, and the changeling wanders down the path a little on his own, promising to go no further than a ten minute walk.

When he can no longer see or hear Howard and Maria he looks around in bushes and under leaves, until he finds a spider. “Please, let The Widow know I wish to speak with her,” he says, and the little brown spider wanders off. A few moments later the Widow comes, rising out of the shadows, as though she was waiting for him.

“My love,” she whispers, bringing him close and kissing him gently, her cobweb robes clinging to his skin like mist. “You are in the world again.”

“This is the first moment I’ve had to myself to contact you. These parents are surprisingly clingy,” he says, sighing in frustration. “I think the Queen’s puck took a wanted child.”

“Mm, those are always so difficult. I could wail for you, if you’d like,” she whispers, winking cheekily. As a Bansidhe of the Unseelie court, that offer is quite a threat. Howard and Maria have done nothing more serious than care, and the changeling does not resent them.

“Not yet. I can last a month, and then I’ll be free to disappear as I see fit,” he says. He kisses her once more. “Find me again when I’m alone. I have missed you.”

“I will follow you, my little hawk,” she whispers, fading back into the forest.

Ten minutes have elapsed, and he waits five more before heading back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies if you saw the first posting of this chapter. It was the wrong draft, so I had to take it down and repost.


	6. But don't trust it either.

Tony dreams.

In his dreams he walks through the darkened castle corridors, pulled along by instinct, down to dungeons that smell of mold and wet earth. There is an old man behind rusted bars, hair and beard both long and dirty. The old man watches him approach and Tony watches in return, and even though there is no light they see each other.

“Don’t let them eat your dreams, Tony,” he says. His voice is softer than Tony was expecting it to be.

“Who are you?”

“A ghost,” the man says, smiling gently. Tony accepts that information with no reaction. “You may call me Yinsen.”

“How do I stop them from eating my dreams?” Tony asks, sitting down on the stone floor outside the cell.

Yinsen fishes around in the pockets of his tattered, filthy pants, and pulls out a small, circular bit of polished metal. “It’s made of iron. I’ve been working on it for a long time, trying to polish it, but they took away my tools a long time ago, and I don’t know how to get them back.”

Tony weighs the item in his hand. It’s very cold, and very heavy for its size. “How will this help me?” he asks, looking up at Yinsen.

“If you can get it polished up enough to see your reflection in, it can be very helpful indeed,” Yinsen says. “Everything you see around you here is made from a magic called glamor. But glamor doesn’t work around iron. Something about magnetic waves, and blood, I think. Iron will help you to see the truth of things, which will help you find a way home.”

“But if I have this, how are you going to get home?” Tony asks, frowning a little. “You’re just going to give me your only ticket out of here?”

Yinsen nods. “Yes.”

“You don’t even know me,” Tony insists. He never trusts people who are selfless, because invariably there turns out to be a hidden cost. Tony likes to know up front what someone’s charity will cost him.

“I don’t need to know you, I just need to see you, and what I see terrifies me,” Yinsen says. “You have too much power and they want it. Don’t let them eat your dreams, Tony, no matter what they promise you. No matter what they threaten you with. If you give them your power it will be a disaster, for humans and for fae alike, though they might not see it now.”

 _So there is an ulterior motive_ , Tony thinks. That’s more like it, so Tony relaxes a little and regards the bit of iron again. “How do I polish this?”

Yinsen sighs. “Very carefully. That iron is real and it needs to be polished with something that is real. A scarce commodity, I can tell you. I used to have a cloth which I managed to sneak in by wrapping it around that iron, but they found it and took it from me. Thank heaven they didn’t find the iron. No, the only real thing that exists here now is the moonlight.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “How do I polish iron with moonlight?”

“By using your imagination, Tony,” Yinsen says.

Then Tony wakes up. He’s in magic bastard’s workshop, laid out on a hard cot.

He sits up slowly, looking around.

“Ah, you’re awake. Good.”

Tony spins around to see the magic bastard climbing down off a long ladder that leads up to a trap door in the ceiling.

Tony considers his words carefully, filtering through possible insults, platitudes, witticisms. Instead he asks “What’s your name?”

The magic bastard looks unimpressed. “Names have a lot of power, I told you that before. Asking someone their name is a punishable offense here.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Fine, what do I call you, then? I’m calling you ‘magic bastard’ in my head, I can keep doing that if you like.”

The magic bastard rolls his eyes in turn. “Call me Liesmith, then.”

“Liesmith,” Tony repeats. “Huh, that’s actually a pretty cool name.”

Liesmith preens a little bit before he can regain control of his countenance. “Anyway, now that you are awake you can help me figure out what to do with you.”

“Do? With me?” Tony asks. “I thought I was that queen lady’s sex toy.”

Liesmith grimaces. “Disgusting. No. Fae don’t… _do that_. How utterly repellant. No, you were to act as a sort of… magical conduit, a medium through which the queen could access certain magics.”

“A mojo battery, huh,” Tony says, standing up and walking around the space a little. Lots of interesting doo-dads and gadgets too look at.

“Mojo battery?” Liesmith asks, then shakes his head slowly with a grin. “An odd way of putting it, but not entirely wrong.”

“Right, so. Mojo battery. That’s what you’re doing with me, apparently,” Tony says, rolling his eyes a little. “Problem solved.”

“No, not anymore,” Liesmith says, leaning against the ladder and regarding Tony with a frown. “You’re the first human to offend the queen so… quickly. Normally the familiars are happy to commune with her, at least at first. But she doesn’t want you now.”

“So send me back home,” Tony says immediately, turning back to look at Liesmith hopefully.

“I wanted to but she won’t let me. Your parents have to pass the changeling trial,” Liesmith says, shrugging and looking away.

Tony bites his tongue. There is no point in arguing or asking questions right now. Negotiating with subordinates never works. He has to find his way back to the queen.

“What are the options?” Tony asks instead, turning back to the worktop. There is a small rodent skeleton, maybe a squirrel, that’s been wrapped with gold wire. Tony tries very hard to guess what it might be used for in a magical context.

“You’re very practical about this,” Liesmith says instead of answering directly. “Aren’t you scared? Or angry?”

Tony looks back over his shoulder at Liesmith, who looks genuinely curious. There is a warmth, a familiarity in the man’s gaze that unnerves Tony. “What would be the point of feeling either of those, exactly?”

“Point? Is there a point to feelings? I thought they just sort of happened,” Liesmith says.

“There’s always a point,” Tony says, looking back at the golden squirrel. He’s about to lecture Liesmith about how different emotions are attached to different drives, but he is instead compelled to ask “What the hell is this thing?” Tony points at the squirrel. Liesmith walks over and stands close to lean over Tony’s shoulder. He smells like rain and the grass just before dawn.

“It’s a rodent skeleton that I wrapped in some gold wire,” says Liesmith, the ‘obviously’ is implied.

“But… why? What do you use this thing for?” Tony asks, taking a step away from Liesmith, because personal space is really important even if you smell nice.

“It’s there to look arcane,” Liesmith says, smirking a little. “I would say the majority of the objects in here are mainly for aesthetic purposes.”

“You’re a fraud!” Tony cries, amused despite himself.

Liesmith laughs. “I am not! It’s just that a good deal of magic has to do with aesthetics. The senses are very important, Tony. Magic is a hedonistic art, and appearances are everything.”

“Huh,” says Tony. “That’s kinda cool.”

“Mm,” Liesmith says. “But back to the matter of where to put you. I have no use for a familiar, but we cannot send you back home, and you cannot be allowed to be idle. There is always room for another mucker in the stables, or perhaps you’d prefer to stay indoors and help the cleaning ladies?”

Tony is offended. “I am way more useful than that! What else is available?”

Liesmith thinks for a moment. “We’ve need for skilled warriors, but I doubt you’d be useful there. You aren’t strong or skilled enough to waste armor on.”

Tony frowns, but doesn’t address that insult. “If you have armor you have a blacksmith. Put me there.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. The blacksmith doesn’t really like being around others,” Liesmith says, wincing. “He’s a bit… violent. Unpredictable.”

“If I have to live in this waking nightmare, I’m going to do it my way. Take me to the blacksmith—I’ll talk him ‘round,” Tony says confidently.

Liesmith shrugs. “As you wish.”

Tony stands up to follow Liesmith out of the workshop, but feels something shift in his pocket. He reaches inside and feels the iron that Yinsen gave him. 

 _That's probably not good_ , Tony thinks. _Waking up with dream objects in your pockets is probably very not good._

He knows better than to trust a ghost in his dream. He's going to have to sneak down to the dungeons and see if he can find any evidence that Yinsen actually existed.

\--

Howard tries to watch Tony without watching Tony, and what he sees cements his suspicions.

His real son never sits still—he’s always moving, meddling in something, taking things apart, or getting into trouble.

This _thing_ that looks like his son just sits there when he doesn’t think he’s being watched. Too still, too idle, too empty.

Maria is concerned, but unwilling to reconsider the possibility that something unnatural is happening, but Howard is surreptitiously googling things like “I think someone stole my son and replaced him with a doppelganger” and “how do you know if someone’s soul is missing?”

Howard has made a very good living on trusting his gut instinct when all logic points him elsewhere. He's been called stupid and crazy before, and he isn't afraid of that--if he’s wrong he’s wrong.

But if there’s a chance that something is going on, that Tony really is somewhere else and is in danger, Howard isn’t going to be the fool who missed it because he was too determined to believe his eyes instead of his heart.


	7. Don't reveal your true name

“Now _that_ is a thyroid problem,” Tony says upon seeing the blacksmith, who is at least eleven feet tall, horrifically muscular, and bright green.

“This is No-Name,” Liesmith says, standing as far away from No-Name as he can.

“Why is he called No-Name?” Tony asks, distracted by No-Name who is currently growling and cowering in the corner, clutching a giant hammer.

“Because he has no name, Tony. Don’t ask stupid questions,” Liesmith says, rolling his eyes.

“Fu-fu-fu,” Tony says with his best hoity-toity voice, rolling his eyes right back at Liesmith. “Does he… talk?”

“No. He barely has two thoughts to rub together, much less enough fizz in that brain to spit out a word. Now let’s go, he’s liable to start throwing things in a moment.” Liesmith is already walking out the door, but Tony is determined that if he has to stay here he will be working in the smithy, not the laundry room.

“Hi, No-Name!” Tony says cheerfully, walking further into the room. No-Name growls louder, so Tony stops in the center of the room and sits down on the ground, making himself small and non-threatening. “My name is Tony! I like your workshop here. I was hoping I could learn how to be a blacksmith; what do you think?”

“Tony!” Liesmith hisses, rushing back into the room. No-Name _really_ doesn’t like that and immediately throws the hammer at him. Liesmith ducks and the hammer embeds into the stone wall outside the door. “I told you he’s violent,” Liesmith says angrily. “Back away from him slowly and come to me.”

Tony turns around and levels Liesmith with an unimpressed stare. “Uh, he was fine with me. He was violent with _you_. Anyway, I’m trying to talk to my friend here. You can leave us alone now.”

Liesmith gives a muted roar of frustration. “You little shit! On my eyes I have never met a more intractable, infuriating--”

“Bye,” Tony says with finality, turning back to No-Name.

Liesmith does leave finally, muttering darkly.

No-Name appears to relax almost immediately.

“Ah-ha!” Tony says. “You just don’t like Liesmith. I bet you’re really nice when he isn’t around and riling you up.”

No-Name cocks his head and stares at Tony with large, fathomless green eyes.

“I bet you’re really smart too. It takes a lot of patience, talent, and planning to make armor. I’ve never made armor, but I’ve made robot casings before. The shaping and detail work are so time consuming, but it’s so important to the final product. I think that’s when creations get some soul, you know?”

No-Name grunts a little in an agreeable sort of way.

“What’s your favorite part of making armor?”

No-Name unpeels himself from the corner and lumbers over to the table where Tony can see various pieces of metal in the process of becoming armor. No-Name picks up a golden vambrace and hands it carefully to Tony, taking a seat on the floor nearby.

The vambrace is very well made from a mechanical standpoint, but it’s also beautiful. It’s not finished yet, it’s in the process of getting detailed along the edges, but from what Tony can see so far No-Name has an amazingly steady hand. The Celtic knots seem to be etched with a needle, the lines are so thin. It looks like lace almost, but the closer Tony looks the more he sees.

“God, this is amazing, No-Name,” Tony says, looking up in awe. A giant grin spreads across No-Name’s big green face. “I wish I could do something half as awesome as this. My detail work is usually just paint!”

No-Name huffs a grumbly laugh, lips parting to show rows of grey, stone like teeth, complete with moss.

Tony hands the vambrace back and No-Name places it gently back on the table. He doesn’t even need to stand up to reach it, his long arms are just that long.

“No-Name’s a terrible name,” Tony says, frowning a little. “I bet you do have a name, but Liesmith just never asked it. How about it big guy? You have a name?”

No-Name hides his face in his hands a little, almost like he’s embarrassed.

“Aww, come on!” Tony says, reaching forward and gently prying No-Name’s hands away from his face. No-Name looks down at where Tony is touching his hand and blinks a little.

Tony remembers belatedly that he’s not supposed to ask people their names here, and is getting ready to bolt, when No-Name finally says “Huk.” He looks up at Tony with a mixture of fear and hope.

“Hulk?” Tony repeats, incredibly thankful that he isn’t getting his head beaten in.

“Huk,” Hulk says, nodding his head in confirmation.

“Hulk, huh?” Tony says, considering. “I like it! Now we can have a proper introduction. Pleasure to meet you, Hulk. I’m Tony!” Tony takes Hulk’s hand and shakes it.

Hulk stares down at their hands again, then back up at Tony’s face. “Ony,” he says. Then he tries shaking Tony’s hand and nearly rips it out of the socket. He looks appalled and cringes away, but Tony just laughs.

“We’re gonna be best friends I think, Hulk.”

Hulk barks out a happy laugh and smothers Tony in a hug that threatens to crack Tony’s spine.

“Ony un Huk!” Hulk cries, which probably means that he agrees.

\--

Maria can’t pinpoint what it is exactly that makes her realize Howard is right, but when she realizes that the thing eating breakfast with her is not her son she almost vomits. She has to excuse herself up to the room, leaving on shaky legs and followed by the concerned gazes of her husband and whatever it is that isn’t Tony.

She does end up vomiting once she’s safely back in her room.

Maybe it was the eyes—there was something missing and she couldn’t ignore it anymore. Or maybe it was the laugh—too guileless, lacking in irony and Tony’s unique brand of sass.

Howard is sitting on the bed when she emerges, face anxious. She knows that he knows she knows.

“What is that thing?” she asks, voice cracking.

“I don’t know,” Howard whispers.

They fall into each other’s arms and weep together, because now it’s real. Their son is missing and no one is going to believe them except for each other.

Eventually they gather themselves, because they are both goal oriented and now there is a goal to deal with.

“How do we find him?” Maria asks when she can’t cry any more, practicality dragging her out from under the weight of her grief. “Does he still have the tracking chips?”

Howard blinks rapidly.

“Oh my god, you forgot you put tracking chips in him,” she says.

“I’m sorry, up until five minutes ago you didn’t even think he was missing,” he hisses. “I’ve been panicking on my own the entire time—my mind wasn’t working at full speed, okay?”

“Contact who you need to contact. Meanwhile, how are we going to play this?” she asks.

Howard considers it for a moment, then nods decisively. “We play it cool. We’ve got another two weeks here before we have to head back home. We do research, try to figure out what that thing is. We’re going to have to wade through a lot of bullshit to find any sort of truth, but if… if s _upernatural_ things exist then we definitely aren’t the first people to encounter something like this. Someone out there knows what’s going on, we just have to find them.”

“I’ll pretend I’m sick. That’ll give me time to do research without it hovering around and keeping an eye on me,” Maria says.

“Very good idea,” Howard says. “If we work together we’ll get him back. I know it.”

Maria bites her lip. “What if we don’t? What if we can’t get it to talk to us, what if the tracking chips don’t work, or…” she can't continue that thought. It's too overwhelming.

“Then I don’t care if that thing is supernatural or not. I will find a way to kill it and I’ll make it hurt. And then I’ll get our son back anyway. That’s a Howard Stark Promise.”

And a Howard Stark Promise is the strongest thing in the world, practically unbreakable. Maria relaxes a little, even though it’s insane to think that Howard can fight against such powerful and unknown forces. He kisses her cheek and leaves to go see where the thing has gone off to.

Maria reclines on the bed, deep in thought.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees movement.

A large spider sits on the sill of the open window. Slowly it crawls away into the safety of the climbing ivy that covers the hotel, disappearing from view. Maria shudders and stands up to close the window.


	8. Names have power

Loki seethes.

If the little mortal wants to have his head ripped off trying to work for that ogre of a blacksmith then so be it. It’s not like Tony’s parents will complete the changeling trial anyway--death would probably be more merciful than living out his days as a plaything of the fae. No, that is not a fate that his Tony would endure with grace.

He catches himself, corrects the possessiveness threatening to drag him into a place he never wants to go. _Not mine. Tony. Tony is not mine._

Loki pinches the bridge of his nose and curses Frigga. Then he curses himself because she’s right, he should have known. He’s had centuries to study the tomes she had given to him. Still, he places most of the blame with her. She should not have been such an indulgent teacher.

He tries to work on his ongoing experiments, but keeps getting up and heading to the door with the unconscious urge to check on Tony, make sure he’s still alive, make sure that the blacksmith isn’t…

He catches himself again—what is it to him if Tony decides to bond with the ogre? If Tony decides to lend his wonderful, endless imagination to that powerless half-thing? What does it matter? _What does it matter?_

Loki finds himself stopping in the doorway for a fourth time in as many hours and curses out loud, shutting his eyes and clenching his fists.

“Nice to see you too,” Tony’s voice says. Loki opens his eyes and looks into the hallway to find the boy standing there, looking unsure yet defiant.

“What are you doing here?” Loki asks, blinking at the boy as though he were a hallucination that might go away with enough will power.

Tony raises an eyebrow and pushes roughly past Loki into the workshop. “Well this seems to be the only place with a bed in it, and I’m tired and sore. Hulk really gave me a workout—dude sure loves smashing things.”

“Hulk?” Loki asks, frowning and following after.

“Yeah! Green dude. I asked him his name before I remembered that it was rude,” Tony says. He lies down on the cot and yawns.

“You asked his name?” Loki repeats, dumbfounded.

“Yeah, and lo-and-behold he had one!” Tony says, frowning at Loki. “If you were less of an asshole you might have discovered that on your own. He’s actually really nice, and smart too.”

Loki starts laughing. “You named him! Oh my god, the Furies are going to be livid!”

“What?” Tony asks, sitting up again. “What are you talking about?”

“No-Name isn't _who_ he is, it's _what_ he is, Tony. No-Names are a caste, a social class. No-Names are bound to a household or a family, and serve until they become worthy of a name. You just stole the prize blacksmith of the Furies! And you named him _Hulk_ ,” Loki wheezes, crying with laughter.

Tony is trying hard not to look anxious, but he’s bouncing his leg rapidly. “You’re laughing, but I get the feeling that I’m in trouble.”

“Oh, the worst trouble! The Furies are quite violent. You’ll likely be killed. Still, that is one of the funniest things to happen in the Seelie Court in quite some time. I was wrong about humans, there is a point to having you things around after all,” Loki says, calming down a little as he examines the tense lines of the boy's face. Tony’s anxiety is infuriatingly infectious.

“You’re joking, right?” Tony asks.

“Oh, I’m really not. You’ve committed a grave offense against a very powerful family. They’re close to the crown, and Queen Frigga would have no reason to protect you.”

 _It’s a shame, really,_ Loki thinks.

Tony turns white. “What do I do? How do I fix it?”

Loki resists the urge to offer protection, or anything else, even though the effort leaves something in his chest feeling heavy and achy. “You’re a genius. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Tony bites his lip, casting his eyes downward.

“Please,” he whispers after a few heavy moments of silence.

Loki’s eyebrows rocket upwards.

“Please,” Tony says again. Then he looks up and catches Loki with those soft cow’s eyes. “Please help me.”

A direct request is as good as a wish coming from Tony when it’s whispered with such fear and hope, and Loki feels a moment of powerlessness overtake him as he says “Alright, I will help you.”

Only a moment and Loki is bound by his own word. A selfless promise, ambiguously worded—almost the worst thing that could have passed Loki’s lips beside his own name.

Tony relaxes a little. “Good. Good, okay.”

Loki can’t look at the boy a second longer, twisted with anger and self-reproach. He walks to the ladder that leads to the second floor of his workshop, but he stops against his will when the boy calls to him.

“Liesmith, I was… I was wondering if there’s anything to eat. I haven’t had anything to eat today,” Tony says. Loki looks over his shoulder at the boy and sees a vulnerability there that wasn’t present before, like a knife in the dark slipping between his ribs. 

“You don’t need food here, Tony. Don’t eat anything, even if someone hands it to you. Just tell them that you’re full and discard it as soon as decorum will allow.”

“But… I’m hungry,” Tony says, voice small and pitiful. "It hurts."

Loki winces, feeling the painfully heavy weight in his chest again. “I know, but that hunger is in your mind. Here your body does not need sustenance. Do not eat our food Tony, it isn’t for you.”

“’kay,” Tony says sadly, before turning away from Loki onto his side, and pulling the thin green blanket up over his shoulders.

Loki watches as the boy falls asleep in front of him almost immediately. He had watched the boy sleep before, but those moments had been as good as stolen. But this... such a sign of trust, carelessly given, not earned by Loki in the slightest. Even fae that have been bound to each other for centuries don’t fall asleep together unless they are creating new thought forms. The intimacy is breath taking and Loki becomes drunk on it.

“Oh, help me,” he whispers in horror when he comes back to himself hours later.

He flees upwards, away from Tony.

\--

The changeling is alone in the small hotel garden, watching sunlight travel across concrete while Maria and Howard are off on a lunch date, when the Widow returns to him. He cannot see her, but he feels her arms embrace him from behind.

“My love,” she whispers in his ear. Her voice fills him with a peace that is unattainable anywhere else. If only he could live forever in these mundane lands.

“I have missed you,” he confesses quietly. There is no one in the garden, but other eyes and ears might be present.

“And I you. I was trying to stay away and not jeopardize your trial, but my spiders have been watching the Starks.” She inhales shakily and continues. “They know, my love.”

A chill seizes his heart, stills his breath, wipes his mind clean for many moments. _They know._

“How?” he asks, horrified.

“I don’t know, but it is a matter of time before they confront you and steal you from me again,” the Widow whispers sadly.

He is almost overtaken with the urge to cry, but he can’t. “There has to be a way to fix this,” he says. “I’ve never failed before, I can’t go back! I can’t leave you before we’ve had a chance to spend even a day together…”

“Sssh, my love,” she whispers. “There might be a way. I have been thinking.”

The Widow is brilliant and tricky, and if she has been thinking then there is hope. He calms down as she strokes his cheek with cold fingers. “What is your plan?”

“They must confront you first, yes? They must demand to be taken to their rightful son, and then they must choose correctly between the two of you.”

“Yes,” the changeling says. He knows the trial, knows all the rules, though he’s never needed to. He’s never been confronted.

“But what if we strike first?” she whispers, laying a gentle kiss against his neck.

There are many possible meanings to her statement, and they play through his mind as she sinks her fangs deep into his artery.

He tilts his head back and waits for her to explain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dudes this has been an exhausting week. I almost didn't write anything today. The world is a difficult, scary place, and meaningful purpose is so difficult to find and maintain in the face of what seems to be infinitely cold and hateful chaos.
> 
> Be nice to someone today. Buy food for someone who needs it, give chocolate to someone who is sad, buy flowers for your loved ones, say I'm sorry and mean it to someone you hurt. Just... make the universe a little less cold, huh? For me?


	9. I am goddamned exhausted

Friends, I am goddamned exhausted. I won't go into what I'm dealing with right now--just know that working for a non-profit is a damned thankless task sometimes.

 

Anyway, I cannot bring myself to write. Instead, have a silly little ms-paint doodle of Loki watching Tony sleep which I did to make myself feel marginally better about not writing. It features silly spiky hair and a fluffy fur wrap, and bed head. These are good things.

 

 

I'm going to take a week off. Next Wednesday hopefully I will feel up to writing. Thank you for reading and understanding.


	10. Don't thank the fae

Tony waits until he hears Liesmith climb up the ladder before sitting up and quietly sneaking over to examine the items on the work table next to the window. The table is filled with many odd things, some of them pretty, some of them dead and rotting.

He wasn’t able to sneak any lock picking tools out of the Hulk’s smithy (the Hulk was very observant and growled any time Tony seemed to be sneaking something into a pocket), but he suspects that Liesmith might have something usable.

Tony hasn’t forgotten about Yinsen in the dungeon. The iron in his pocket tells him it wasn’t only a dream. He wants to explore because he is certain that something important waits for him in the stone depths below, if he could just sneak away. There will be locked doors, there always are, but he hopes they are pickable by means other than magic.

He finds a few likely looking twists of metal that should work well enough for his purposes. He slips them into his pocket, and looks over his shoulder to check that Liesmith hasn’t reappeared. The coast is clear behind him so he sneaks into the doorway and listens for movement. In this way he progresses slowly through the castle, moving silently, hiding in doorways, listening for movement, then moving again. He is used to sneaking and very good at it.

However, his confidence is shattered shortly after he begins his self-congratulatory preening when a hushed voice pipes up behind him. “Where are we sneaking to?”

Choking on his shock, Tony spins around to find the short little golden haired tailor and the silent wooden armed brute. _The groomers._

“What the hell are you doing here? How long have you been following me?” Tony asks, taking a few quick steps away.

“Ever since you left Loki’s worksh—“ little golden hair starts to say, before wooden arm smacks the back of his head. “Oh, oh geez…” little golden hair says, holding a hand over his mouth.

“Loki?” Tony asks, face lighting up with the joy of having obviously forbidden knowledge.

“Don’t tell him it was me who told ya his name!” little golden hair begs, squeezing his eyes shut. “He’ll curse me for sure! Make me tall and strong and handsome like this dummy behind me,” little golden hair says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate wooden arm.

 “And we wouldn’t want that?” Tony asks, just to be certain.

“Lordy no!” little golden hair says, shaking his head grimly. Wooden arm stares at Tony with a strangely empty gaze that Tony can’t return for long.

“Well, I won’t tell him if you’ll help me get down to explore the dungeons. I think that’s a fair trade,” Tony says, crossing his arms and looking as stern as he can.

“Oh thank you!” little golden hair says, blue eyes wide and full of dancing light. Wooden arm smacks him in the head again. “Damn, damn, damn,” little golden hair says, scrunching up his face again and rubbing the sore spot. “I always forget not to thank anyone,” he says miserably.

Tony feels a little sorry for him. “It’s forgotten. You don’t owe me anything except a safe trip to the dungeon.”

“Oh thank you!” little golden hair says again. Wooden arm cradles his head in his hands.

They set off again after Tony promises to forget little golden hair’s repeated faux pas. Tony follows them, watching little golden hair lead the way with his awkward gait. Wooden arms lopes along like a wolf, and is obviously the stronger of the two. It’s equally obvious that little golden hair is the leader despite his diminutive stature. As different as they seem they belong together.

After twenty minutes of strolling through endless corridors, little golden hair is wheezing gently, clutching at his chest. Wooden arm bends low and feels along little golden hair’s ribs.

“It’s fine, it is. Just… I forget sometimes. I’ll be fine,” little golden hair promises. Wooden arm snorts and lifts golden hair up, up, up and rests him so he’s sitting on wooden arm’s shoulder.

“Hey now, Bucky!” Little golden hair protests, kicking ineffectively with his little legs. “I—ah dang it again!”

They both look over at Tony, assessing his reaction.

“My dudes, I wouldn’t even know what to do with a name, even if I could do something,” he says, holding his hands up to show he’s not a threat. “I won’t tell a soul. But I gotta say, for a fae you’re really bad at remembering your own rules.”

Little golden hair fidgets a little and then blurts out before wooden arm can stop him “I’m not actually fae. Or I wasn’t always. I was human once, too. Like you. Bucky was too.”

“How the hell did that happen?” Tony asks, incredulously.

Wooden arm puts a hand over little golden hair’s mouth in time, shaking his head silently and staring at little golden hair with those large, empty eyes. “You’re right,” little golden hair says once wooden arm deems it safe to remove his hand. “It’s not our secret to tell,” he says to Tony.

“Fair enough,” says Tony, shrugging. Despite his nonchalance he’s burning inside with curiosity. _How does a human become a fae?_

They arrive eventually at doors that obviously lead to the dungeon. Large, forbidden looking, big ol’ lock right there.

Wooden arm reaches out his flesh hand and presses a key into the lock, opening the heavy doors and walking through them with purpose. Tony scrambles after, looking around the darkened halls within. The only light comes from low burning lamps set into alcoves, instead of the brightly burning torches and chandeliers that line the rest of the castle. It’s properly dark and gloomy. Tony takes a few steps forward to look at a low wooden chest that has a very interesting looking locking mechanism, when the door slams behind him.

Tony turns with horror to see that golden hair and wooden arm are gone, and remembers too late that he only asked for a safe trip to the dungeon.

He didn’t remember to ask for safe passage out again.

\--

The changeling paces in his room, rehearsing the Widow’s plan. He has tried to predict every outcome, but at a certain point he must gather the nerve to plunge forward, and the moment finally arrives. He throws open the door to his room with the intention of heading down to the hotel bar where Howard and Maria usually gather.

Upon opening his door he finds Howard and Maria on the threshold; Maria holding a net, and Howard holding a very serious looking piece of wood that might have once been a leg of one of the chairs in the master suite.

“Tony,” they say in unison, smiling pleasantly as though it weren’t obvious they were about to bludgeon him.

Ah, well then.

“I believe it’s time for us to talk,” the changeling says, no longer bothering to sound like Tony. This has the intended effect of further discombobulating Howard and Maria, which gives the changeling an opportunity to sweep past them unscathed. He decides to have this discussion in the main sitting room. He takes the couch, and they take the two seats opposite. They are pale faced, watchful, waiting.

Perfect.

“As you are no doubt aware, I am not your son,” he says as plainly as he can.

Color rushes back into Howards face. “Where is my boy, what the hell have you done, I’ll fucking kill you, you motherfu--”

The changeling holds up a hand. “Please, let me speak and then I will answer your questions. Your son isn’t even in the same world anymore,” he flicks a wrist and summons a quick flame to show them exactly how real this situation is, “So believe me when I tell you that the only way you will get your boy back is if you listen to me, and do exactly as I say.”

“What do you want?” Maria says, white knuckled hands still tangled in the net.

“I want to be free. I want to stay in this world where I can be anyone and do anything. I don’t want to go back and be just another changeling. I want a name,” the changeling says, eyes shining brightly with deep emotion. “In order for me to get that we must make a bargain. I’m little more than a slave where I come from, owned by a lord and lady who see me as a hound to fetch their fowl. I am bound by powerful magic, but if I were to be named by a human I could be freed. It’s the only thing that can break this spell.”

“So, you get my boy back and I give you a name? That’s all?” Howard says, half desperate, half reasonably suspicious.

The changeling looks out the window at a robin resting on the low stone wall. It flies away into the first bright blue sky he’s seen in a week.

“No, it isn’t as simple as that. You are the only parents, in my hundreds of years of stealing children, who have ever realized I wasn't their child, and I… admire and respect you for that. So, I will not trick you or lie to you. You might not believe me, but for my part I will hold my word,” the changeling holds a hand up to his chest, over where a heart would be.

“What do we have to do?” Maria asks. Always so practical. If the changeling had ever had a mother he would have wanted her to be like Maria.

“First you must gather some iron,” the changeling says. “It may be difficult to get as much iron as will be needed.”

Howard’s chest puffs out proudly. “Don’t worry about resources, boy. Just tell me what I need to get, and I’ll get it.”

The widow sits high in a ceiling corner and watches as the changeling begins spinning out her plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahahaagh yay I wrote a chapter I hope it was worth the wait blaaaaagh
> 
> Also: thank you to everyone who was so incredibly supportive and lovely to me about skipping a week. It made it easier to get the rest I needed, and motivated me to write again.


	11. Or you'll owe them

Loki doesn’t sleep normally, but sometimes he experiences a stillness which will wash over him when he is experiencing dilemmas or inner conflict. It is a stillness that exists outside and inside himself.

In his small tower room there is a window that he will sit in to watch the moonfall.

The sky here is so different from his home. It's beautiful but it makes him home sick for his dark world.

Here in the bright court they kept the human sun and moon, and even the stars. It was a bold decision to keep such a physical reminder of the mortal world, especially back in the first days of the schism, when most fae decided to leave the humans behind. After they lost control of Nod.

The dark court did not keep the sun or the moon, or even the stars. The only tie they have with the mortal world is a single human consort that they choose every hundred years. The human is allowed to dream with the Queen or King for one month to prevent population decline, and then they are returned to the human world.

Loki wants to abolish even that much contact. He must find a way to create new fae without any human involvement, so that the dark court can close its gates once and for all.

But he cannot ascend to his throne and make these changes without showing he is capable of creating life.

And so far he has been unable to create life without a human dreamer.

At times he has entertained the idea of trying to find a way to transform a human into a fae, but has not tried it yet. He’s not sure why, since it would be the quickest way to his throne. After all, he just has to show that he can create “new” life, and a human-fae hybrid would certainly be new. After gaining the power that comes with a new throne he's certain he'd be able to do it for real, without a human.

In his stillness he fails to notice Tony’s departure, but as the moon finally dips below the rim of this world, Loki realizes that he cannot hear the boys soft snoring. The sun will be rising soon, so perhaps the boy has awoken.

The couch is empty when Loki descends the ladder.

“Bit early to run to the smithy, I would think,” sniffs Loki. “Boring way to start the day anyway, banging bits of metal together.”

If it’s jealousy coiling in his chest he refuses to acknowledge it, and chooses to begin his own day in slightly less boring ways. Although he is a visiting prince from another court he still has duties, which he either performs, ignores, or sabotages, depending on his mood.

Today is a sabotage sort of day.

He intentionally miscounts the enchanted cattle that are to be shipped off to a small farmer who failed to respect what was clearly fae territory. These cattle will always find their way out of the pen, will birth defective calves, and produce sour milk. He is supposed to send twenty, but he sends thirty, which will no doubt cause all sorts of wonderful confusion and chaos, both with the fae who will find their cursed herd ten short, and with the human who will discover he has ten extra cows of very poor quality.

Next he oversees the changeling assignments for the day. He sends two changelings to a house with only one baby, one changeling to a house with triplets, and twenty changelings to an orphanage that is abusing its children (that last one is a bit of benevolent sabotage, which seems almost against the spirit of the whole thing. The twenty children will be adopted to fae families and lead markedly batter lives, while the changeling children will likely eat the staff and have a rather enjoyable time running amok for eighty odd years. Still, chaos is chaos.)

There are very few milkmaids to seduce in the world these days, but he spends a good five minutes flirting with a barista at a Starbucks in Newcastle and ensures she will never love another man again (he fails to notice in time that she is bi-sexual, and that the impact of his meddling won't be as dramatic as he wanted it to be). The flirting doesn't count as court sabotage, but getting Frigga’s order wrong definitely is.

She sits in her throne and gazes at her caramel frapp with no whip, and sighs. “I wish you would take your frustrations out like a normal prince and just execute a few people. I don’t know why you’re punishing me, I haven’t done anything to you.”

“You tempted me with the boy, so you don’t get whipped cream now,” Loki says, shrugging and licking the whipped cream nipple rising out the top of his own double chocolate chip frapp.

He leaves her with her disappointing drink and heads to the groomers to have a new suit made and also possibly to get his hair done.

As soon as he enters the room the little golden haired creature squeaks and hides behind the wooden armed buffoon. “He only asked us to take him to the dungeon! He didn’t ask us to bring him back! It was a classic ‘careful what you wish for’ scenario, okay? I would have got in trouble for not locking him in the dungeon!”

Loki pinches the bridge of his nose, a sudden tension headache crawling up the back of his skull. “You let the human… the small, mortal boy whose still under our protection until the trial ends… you let him go in the dungeon. You locked him in the dungeon.”

“Yes,” the golden haired idiot says. “It was the perfect set up, okay? It would be like not walking on a rake, or dodging the whipped cream pie. It just has to be done, or it’s wrong!”

“Frigga’s right, I really should just execute someone when I’m mad. It would make things run so much smoother around here,” Loki says pleasantly. Wooden arm’s stance changes slightly from neutrally bored to menacingly lethal instantly. “Oh relax you plank of wood. I won't kill you today."

"Oh thank you!" the little golden haired idiot says, clapping a hand over his own mouth too late.

Loki grins maliciously. "Both of you, come with me. Let’s hope the boy hasn’t run into Odin yet." He spins dramatically to exit the room, and doesn't stop to make sure they are following him. He knows they will.

Although he will do his best to rescue Tony as quickly as possible, a part of him knows that for a boy as prone to trouble and danger as Tony is that it will be inevitable that his path will cross Odin's. Even Loki doesn't wish to see the chaos that will ensue from that meeting.

\--

Maria scrambles after her husband and the thing that is wearing Tony’s face. It is leading them further and further away from the town, winding up a narrow mountain path into the forest.

“Where are we going?” Howard asks again. The thing stopped answering around the third time that Howard asked, but that hasn’t discouraged Howard from asking. Maria is just as anxious, but she is quiet where Howard is loud, cautious where Howard is reckless, and watchful where Howard is blind.

The thing stops at the crest of a hill that overlooks the town, and looks around. “Because you are grown, and because I’m not trained in transportation magics, we’re going to have to essentially walk to the bright court.”

“You said the world of the fae was on a different plane of existence. How the fuck are we going to walk into another dimension?” Howard asks, frowning suspiciously.

“I have heard a theory in your world that all universes are connected like beads on a string, and that it is possible to move from one universe to the next by travelling along that string,” the thing says.

“Alright,” Howard says, folding his arms.

“In fact it is exactly not like that at all. Instead imagine that all the beads are inside each other bead, and that instead of travelling by string you are travelling by ham sandwich,” the thing says.

Howard opens his mouth and closes it a few times. “That… travelling by ham sandwich? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I merely mean that it is like using a method of transportation that doesn’t exist in this world yet. A ham sandwich is a reasonable approximation of how absurd the reality of the mechanism would be to you.”

“I dunno, try me. How are we actually travelling?” Howard asks.

“We’re travelling by pun,” the thing says.

Howard frowns a little, looking thoughtful. “Reality shift based on association and perspective?”

The thing looks mildly impressed. “Almost, yes. More like reflection instead of association.”

“Pepper’s Ghost but a little more real,” Howard muses.

“You really are quite clever,” the thing says. “I wish I could have grown up with you as my father.”

Howard blinks rapidly and Maria looks away from the boy that isn’t her son, fighting a powerful instinct to hug him.

“What are we waiting for?” Howard asks.

“A physical change. We are on the borderline between the wilds and civilization, now we need to be on the borderline between day and night. It will be easier to shift perspectives and fall into the right plane if we’re already in a transition. It’s much easier to do this in the spring and the fall, so our timing is very lucky.”

They watch the sky purpling as the sun sinks lower. Howard reaches out and grabs Maria’s hand. “In this together,” he says to her, wearing his bravest face.

“Always,” she says, squeezing his hand hard.

The wind picks up, the sun falls behind the mountain, and the three of them disappear.


	12. Don't say "I wish"

Tony contemplates his options in the sudden dark of the dungeon.

Stay near the door with the hopes that Loki remembers promising to help Tony, or explore the dungeon he already wanted to explore anyway.

“I mean, I was going to explore on my own to begin with, so I might as well just do it,” he says out loud. A sudden gust from nowhere picks up, killing the flames dancing in the small alcoves. “Well that’s just fucking perfect.”

With no light to help navigate by, he’s forced to sit down where he is and wait for Loki. But as he sits down, the loose pockets of his spider silk pants gape open slightly and he sees a blue glow from within. Reaching in cautiously he pulls out the circular bit of iron he kept from the dream. Once in his hand it glows even brighter, enough to illuminate the space around him ten times brighter than the small flames which died in the strangely well timed breeze.

“Hah, suck it,” he says, standing up.

There’s only one way to go, so he starts walking down the long stone tunnel that slowly descends into the cold earth. There are no cells or branching pathways, just a single hallway that curves regularly. Tony recreates the pattern of his steps in his mind and realizes he is walking the path of a labyrinth.

“At least it will be easy to get back out,” he says with faint hope.

As he walks, he thinks about his situation. It’s too strange to be real, and yet some sort of spiritual proprioception tells him that it is.  His first instinct upon learning that magic is real is to wonder how to utilize it to advance technology, and he wonders if he’s too callous. Shouldn’t he be more scared than he is? Is something in him broken?

Sometimes his life feels like a labyrinth—the path is laid and he can only walk it. Agonizing about it never helps because no matter what he does he always ends up where he was going to end up, which nine times out of ten is exactly in the center of a lot of trouble. It’s claustrophobic to think that he is ruled by predestination, but also freeing to think that maybe always being in trouble is what he was put on the planet to do.

“Eventually this path is going to run out, and at the center of this labyrinth will be something that I probably don’t want to see, and yet I’m still walking,” he says, voice echoing back at him off the stone. It’s getting cold enough that he can see his breath. “I mean, I know it’s a bad idea, but all of my ideas are bad ideas, so I’m kinda fucking stuck,” he says. “If I have waited at the mouth of the dungeon I probably would have managed to get in trouble there too.”

“Yes, exactly,” a voice says just beyond the edge of light. Tony stops, backs up a few steps. “You needn’t be afraid, child. You are here, which means that this is where you are supposed to be.”

“Uh huh,” Tony says cautiously. “And you are?”

“I could be a friend,” the voice says. It’s a deep voice, a calming voice. The voice says ‘ _trust me, I know many things.’_

“I have a feeling they wouldn’t keep friend material locked away at the center of a dungeon labyrinth,” Tony says reasonably.

The voice chuckles. “No, perhaps not. I could be a fine enemy as well. I could be whatever you wanted me to be.”

It is not a comforting response.

“And what are you when you are alone?” Tony asks. “What are you when no one is here to want you?”

“Then I am nothing,” the voice says.

Tony imagines a chameleon up against a void, and shudders.

“What should I call you?” Tony asks.

The voice is silent for a moment, then “Call me Howard.”

Tony holds his breath, homesickness suddenly overwhelming. “That is my father’s name.”

“Yes,” the voice says.

“You are not my father.”

“No,” the voice says.

Tony wishes he could go back to not being scared, because suddenly he is terrified. Whatever is waiting outside the circle of his light is dangerous. Not dangerous like a knife, but dangerous like a lie told to a child. Dangerous like a seed planted in the ground.

Tony knows this, and also knows the only thing preventing whatever is in the center of the labyrinth from reaching out and grabbing him is the circle of blue white light that is being cast by the little bit of iron.

“I’m going to go now,” Tony says, trying to control the shaking in his voice. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

The thing chuckles. “I’m sure I’ll see you again. You forgot to ask me about Yinsen, after all. That can wait for next time though—the Queen’s Puck is here to collect you.”

Tony turns to look behind himself and sees Loki there, staring with wide, horrified eyes at whatever hides in the darkness. “Tony,” he says, extending a hand towards him. “Please.”

Perhaps in less dangerous circumstances Tony would scoff, or brush past Loki, in order to show how unaffected he was by the whole thing. He would bluff and pose, and hide his feelings so deep within himself that even he wouldn’t know the truth of things. But he takes Loki’s hand, and allows Loki to pull him away.

Loki’s hand is warm.

The quiet laughter that follows upon their heels is so, so cold.

\--

The world shifts, and suddenly the changeling is back home in the forest of his youth. Maria and Howard stare at him with wide, frightened eyes.

“Now we walk,” the changeling says, turning on his heel.

The journey through the forest to the castle is never easy, but the changeling and the Starks have taken as many precautions as possible in the short time given them.

“How long will this take?” Howard asks in a quiet and almost fearful tone of voice that is quite far from his normal brusqueness.

“It depends on how bored the forest is,” the changeling answers. “If it’s bored, we’ll arrive with minutes to spare. If it ignores us, we’ll arrive with moments to spare.”

“I feel like saying ‘that doesn’t make sense’ would earn me a dunce cap here,” Maria says under her breath.

“Oh, no, please. Feel free to say ‘that doesn’t make sense’ or ‘but that’s not fair’. We love it when humans say shit like that,” the changeling says cheerfully.

“What sort of thing is the forest likely to… do to us?” Howard asks.

The changeling chuckles. “Always trying to be prepared. It’s adorable, really, and entirely useless here. You’re better off being flexible, open to what comes our way.”

“Great, wonderful, perfect,” Howard says, throwing his hands up in the air. “I’ll change my name to Babbling Brook and wear jeans and flip flops while I’m at it. Should we braid some hair? Come here, Maria, let me braid your hair.”

Maria slaps Howard’s hand away. “Not helping things, Howard.”

Howard shuts up for a while after that, thankfully.

But it only takes an hour before Howard starts whining again.  “God, at this point I’d love it if something fucking happened. I’m so fucking bored!”

“You’re worse than Tony,” Maria says, rolling her eyes.

Both of them fall silent again, lost in thoughts of their son probably, the changeling thinks.

He wonders what they’re like together as a family. The bickering is strange to him, but he won’t deny that there is a casual familiarity between Howard and Maria that is appealing. They’re friends as much as they are anything else. Are they also friends with Tony? Do they have that friendly, easy, teasing banter with him? The changeling is rarely jealous of the child he replaces—he endures the family he is given to until he’s old enough to escape on his own. But now…

He finds himself wishing for a second time that he could stay with the Starks.

Howard is just opening his mouth for a third time to complain when the forest finally makes its move. A giant centaur erupts from the tree line, headed straight for Maria. The changeling summons his bow, but is too late.

The centaur drags Maria off into the woods.

Howard runs after them as fast as he can, tripping and falling over roots, screaming in desperation.

The changeling follows after, more upset for Maria and Howard than he has any reason to be. It's uncomfortable and strange. The feeling sits in his chest like a lead weight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo...
> 
> I've stalled on the original story that I want to try publishing one day, because I'm trying to write both these stories at the same time. Both stories are suffering as a result, so I have to focus on one.
> 
> Because I like my readers too much to leave a story on hiatus I will finish this one first.
> 
> As a result of me needing this thing to be done I will be updating more often, but more irregularly. I am hoping to get this thing finished out in a month. I think we're half way at this point, so I'm estimating another ten chapters, about 20,000 words. That isn't that hard for me to do if I'm focusing, which I will be doing from now on.
> 
> Also on the subject of my readers:
> 
> I want to thank you guys so much-- the first time readers, the folks that follow me from story to story, the ones that comment all the time, the ones that never comment.
> 
> I have the confidence to try to write my own story because you have been so supportive. It's a dream I've always had, and I think I never would have tried had it not been for all of you.
> 
> Keep telling me what you like, what you don't like. Your words are nourishment.


	13. You might get what you want.

Odin is a thing they don’t really talk about any more. Not since Frigga tore out his eye and built a labyrinth to put him in. When Odin went into the dark, most of the kingdom tried to forget he ever even existed. They’ve all been quite successful for the most part.

Loki suspects that Frigga might be guilty of altering some memories, even some of his own. The shadows thrown by the things he cannot remember tell him that he and Odin were not friends, and that if Frigga had not ripped out Odin’s eye, Loki would have.

But he cannot remember why.

He doesn’t ask Frigga about it, and they have an unspoken agreement to never mention Odin. Especially not around Thor.

Odin and Frigga made Thor together, which was quite a feat. It is impossible for a single fae to make life (so far), and nearly impossible for two fae to make life. A pure fae coupling always results in an offspring that is very… strange. Almost human in intellect, and nearly without glamour. Thor matches up with the stereotypes, apart from the fact that he is amazingly strong and capable of wielding thunder.

It also means that Thor is fiercely protective of Odin, because Odin is his real father, not just his wish-father.

 As Loki rushes away from the darkness that contains Odin, he is choked by a fear and a rage so powerful that he doesn’t realize Tony is calling his name until they are out and the dungeon doors are firmly locked behind them.

“Loki, my arm, Loki--” Tony says, breathless with terror and pain.

Loki lets go, but slams Tony up against the wall as soon as he does. “Do you have any idea what could have happened if you had not had that iron in your hand? Where did you get that?”

“Yinsen,” Tony says quietly. His eyes are wide, face pale and drained. “In a dream.”

Loki doesn’t recognize that name, or understand what Tony means, but he’s not in the mood to press down that path right now. “How do you know my name?” Loki hisses instead.

“The groomer with the gold hair,” Tony says.

Tony’s uncharacteristically pliant and Loki feels his rage ebbing away slowly. “What did Odin say to you?”

“Is that who was in the basement? He told me he could be a friend or an enemy. Told me he was nothing when no one was around. Asked me… asked me to call him by my dad’s name. He knew my dad’s name, he knew who I was. How?” Tony looks up at Loki, confused and concerned.

“It appears he still has spies in the castle. That is unsettling, and something we should bring to the Queen’s attention as soon as possible,” Loki says, mostly to himself.

“What… what would he have done to me?” Tony says, searching Loki’s face.

Loki’s rage evaporates entirely, and is replaced by a tired sort of ache. “I don’t know. It wouldn’t have been good. He is insane and vengeful. You likely would have died by his hand… eventually.”

Tony closes his eyes and does something shocking.

He slowly embraces Loki, burying his face in the soft fabric of Loki’s shirt. “Thank you,” he whispers.

Before Loki can respond, or even return the embrace, a voice that is as familiar as it is unwelcome says “Ah, the puck and the thief. I have been looking for both of you for quite some time.” Loki turns to see the Furies, blocking the entrance to the hall. Their leader, Nix, a tall, dark skinned fae with one eye and a long leather coat, holds twin daggers in loose fists at his side. He is flanked by two of the deadlier Furies, Underhill and Foal-Son, both carrying heavy, blunt weapons that look quite intimidating. “Tell me, thief, what do you intend as recompense for the blacksmith you took?”

Tony’s brief period of meekness passes with disappointing quickness. “I’ll tell you what I’ll give you, I’ll give you my foot up your--” Loki slaps a hand over Tony’s mouth just in time.

Loki, the diplomat, speaks for Tony. “Sweet Tony wishes to know what you would accept as recompense. He is a clever child, certainly he could give you a dream or two to make up for the loss of your ogre.”

“A dream or two? What use have I for a dreaming child?” Nix growls. “My domain is blood, and pain, and… fury,” he says, with a small smirk. “A thieving child will not provide my men with weapons, he will not defend our borders. No, I would face him in battle. He may have my blacksmith, but I will have his honor and his head.”

Tony bites Loki’s hand hard, and surprises Loki enough to jerk his hand away. “I can speak for myself,” Tony says, glaring at Loki. “Weapons? You want weapons? I can give you fucking weapons. Call me the fucking merchant of death, Polyphemus.”

Foal-Son’s face does a thing where it smiles without moving. “You truly think that you can be of use to us?”

Tony smirks and holds his hands wide. “Give me a chance. Two weeks should be enough for me to come up with somethin’ to please ya. If you don’t like what I make, you can have my head,” he says. “Not sure I really have any honor though. I think I left that in my other pants.”

Nix laughs a single bark of disbelieving laughter. “You have more back bone than the other human children I have met, I will give you that. Fine, I will give you your chance. One week.”

“Two weeks,” Tony says, folding his arms.

“One week and I won’t take your head. I’ll merely take your eye,” Nix says reasonably.

“One and a half weeks, and you can have an eye if you don’t like what I make,” Tony says with finality, holding out a hand.

“Tony,” Loki says in warning.

Nix and Tony shake hands before Loki can explain why that is a very, very bad idea.

“I look forward to seeing what weapons a dreaming child can make,” Nix says, laughter tinting the edges of his voice. “I’m sure your army of teddy bears and tin soldiers will be very useful.”

Nix leaves, and his two minions follow behind. Foal-Son turns back to fix Tony with an assessing gaze, before he turns the corner.

Tony looks over at Loki, raising his eyebrows. “When was the last time he met a human?”

Loki sighs. “Before your first World War, I believe.”

“Hm. He’s gonna be in for some surprises,” Tony says, shaking his head a little.

“I hope you know what you’re doing. He wasn’t kidding about the eye,” Loki says.

“Relax,” Tony says with a relaxed shrug. “I can do anything.”

Loki almost believes him.

\--

Maria blames the shock of the rushing wind that steals her breath, and the absurdity of being kidnapped by a mythical creature, for the delay in her reaction. They are miles away by the time that Maria’s Special Forces training comes back to her. It has been many years, but the muscle memory never left her.

The Centaur has a bow strapped over its back.

 _Perfect,_ she thinks.

She twists sharply in the loose grip of the centaur, who has no doubt underestimated Maria’s determination to fight, due to her prolonged silence and stillness. She gets her legs around his human torso, enjoying the brief glimpse of surprise in his eyes before she smashes his nose in with the heel of her hand.

Next she grabs the bow, jerking it up to his neck and using it to swing herself around onto his back. She pulls the bow back tightly, using the leather of the bowstring to garrote him. He howls in agony, trying to buck her off, but she keeps her seat and slowly wears him down.

“You will take me back to my husband immediately, or I will kill you,” she says gently, using the tone of voice that she usually reserves for Tony when he’s really stepped over the line.

The centaur stills immediately. “A’right,” he chokes out. She gives him a little more room to breathe, and he gasps sharply. “Crazy gel, I was merely gon’ take ya to castle. Lost little thing, need directions home from Queenie.”

“Lie,” she says immediately.

“A’right, ‘kay, I wasn’t gon’ take ya to castle, I was gon’ take ya’ to mah cave and court ya,” he says, shaking his hind quarters nervously.

“Lie,” she says again.

“A’right, maybe not court so much as--”

“I don’t care. Take me back to my husband,” she says, sighing in annoyance and tightening the bowstring threateningly again.

“A’right,” he squeaks. “Going now,” he says, turning back the way they came and cantering at a reasonably quick pace.

He tries a couple times to start a conversation, asking her what he name is, asking her about how she came to be in the forest, but she remains silent. He tries once more.

“How a human gel get to grow so wiley? Only ‘em fae gels get tricks like that. Them fae girls never wanna play, they only stick ya and laugh,” he says, dolefully.

“Trained for the military,” she says. “I can gut you with my little pocket knife,” she says, holding it out for him to see. “I can try it if you don’t get me back to my husband soon.”

“Aye-ya,” the centaur sighs. “Such a small knife? Nah, you deserve a bigger ‘un for ya brave boots. Reach in my bag, there’s a knife in there for ya.”

“I don’t think so,” Maria says, tightening her legs around his sides.

“Ah gel, I ain’t tryna trick. It was a courtin’ gift for whomever I could catch. I ain’t gon’ catch none prettier than you, but as you ain’t wanna play--”

“Keep it for the next poor girl you kidnap,” Maria says with disgust.

“That’s what I’m tryna say,” the centaur says sadly. “I ain’t wanna ‘nother. Ya beat me. I wanna remember you, and I want ya ta remember me.”

“I really don’t want to,” she says.

“I’m centaur, but I’m still fae,” he says quietly, coming to a halt in the middle of the forest. “Is bad luck ta reject a gift from me.”

Maria sighs. “Fine, this bag here?”

He nods, turning a little to look at her over his shoulder. “The green handled one,” he says.

His bag is full of knives and she raises an eyebrow, but searches for the green handle without comment. She finds it, and pulls it out to examine it, keeping the bowstring tight across his neck the entire time.

It is a beautiful knife, gold with green enamel inlay in the scabbard, depicting a coiled serpent encircling a globe, eating its tail.

“It’s beautiful,” she says.

“Ya gon’ ta thank me?” The centaur asks hopefully.

“You wish,” she says, remembering the changeling child and his many warnings about the… _culture_ they were about to encounter.

“Clever gel,” the centaur says, shaking his head with a laugh. “Ya husband and the changelin’ coming up round the line there,” he says, pointing.

As soon as he points, Howard and the changeling come marching out of the woods.

“Howard!” Maria screams, leaping off the centaur and running full tilt towards Howard. Howard spins around and runs to her, and they nearly fall down with the force of their impact.

“Maria,” he whispers, face white with ill-concealed panic. “I… I thought I was going to…”

Maria kisses away the thought in his mind.

“Ah, ‘s sweet,” the centaur says behind them. They turn and look back at him. His face is still bloody from when Maria broke his nose, but he’s smiling wistfully.

“I will fucking kill you,” Howard growls, fumbling for the iron cudgel he’s concealing down the back of his pants. The changeling puts a hand on his arm to stop him, looking around the tree tops.

“Not just yet,” he warns.

Howard grumbles but leaves it be.

The centaur smiles brightly at everyone. “Well, let’s get ta castle!”

“You’re not coming with us,” Howard and Maria say at the same time.

The changeling clears his throat.

“He, uh… he kinda has to. This is our guide,” the changeling says.

“Hi!” The centaur says brightly, waving happily at them.


	14. Don't eat fae fruit

“Tony,” Loki says for the third time. “Can you even hear me?”

Tony can hear Loki, but Tony is too busy to respond. He is assessing the situation, weighing his options. He’s going to have to take some risks, make some sacrifices to make this work, but he can do it. There are just some things he needs to—

Loki slaps him in the face.

“Yes I can hear you!” Tony squeals, holding a hand up to his burning cheek and turning to give Loki a scandalized stare.

“What is your plan, child?” Loki says through clenched teeth.

“I was trying to make one up when you slapped me!” Tony yells.

Loki throws his hands up in the air. “You don’t even have a plan!”

“So _help_ me, then,” Tony mumbles, turning back to look out the window at the moon. Yinsen said he could use moonlight to polish the iron somehow. The iron is his way home, somehow. The iron in his fist is cold, no matter how long he’s held it.

Loki said he didn’t need to eat, that the hunger was in his mind.

The iron should be warm. _The iron should be warm._

“In order for me to make it out of this alive, I need you to answer some questions for me,” Tony says, turning to look at Loki.

Loki nods warily for Tony to ask.

“Where is my body? Where is it _actually_?”

Loki breathes a small laugh. “Clever boy. How did you know?”

“The iron is cold,” Tony says, holding his hand out. Loki takes a couple steps back. “Why is iron dangerous to you?”

“You ask too much,” Loki says, licking his lips. “That isn’t information I will give you.”

“You need to help me,” Tony says.

“I can find other ways to help you,” Loki says instead, eyes flicking down to the iron in Tony’s palm. “How did you get that here?”

“I didn’t,” Tony says. “Yinsen did. Gave it to me in a dream.”

“Yinsen,” Loki says, tasting the word. “Yinsen. I don’t recall that name.”

“Odin knew who Yinsen was. Odin knew that Yinsen had given me the iron.”

At the mention of Odin’s name, Loki snarls and turns away. “Odin,” he says with considerable disgust. “Odin knows nothing but warmongering and treachery.”

“Who is Odin?”

“Another question I will not answer,” Loki says with a strained smile. He looks like he is about to say something else, but before he can do anything a large, blonde, ripped guy bounds into the room like a puppy. Tony quickly hides the iron in his pocket.

“Brother!” the blonde booms, gathering Loki up in his arms like a wet cat. Loki looks like he’s ready to kill. “I heard your consort has made a deal with the furies!”

“NOT MY CONSORT,” Loki shrieks, but the man ignores him with good humor. Then he catches sight of Tony.

“The little human!” He shouts happily, running over to lift Tony in his arms. “Goodness, you’re so small! Even for a human!”

Tony tries to kick him, but it’s ineffective. “Let me down!”

Thor puts him down with an easy grin. “I can’t wait to see what you invent for us, little dreamer. Nix was clever to trick you into giving us weapons.”

Trick?

“What do you mean?” Tony asks, looking over at Loki who won’t look back at him.

“A human imagination is a precious thing,” Thor says, beaming at Tony like he’s a new car. “We don’t have any of our own, of course. We can perfect a thing, but we cannot innovate. But that is what we have _you_ for.”

“I see,” Tony says. His sudden rage sits quietly in the pit of his stomach. He was never actually going to give them the weapons they wanted, of course he wasn't, but he’s infuriated that they thought they were smart enough to trick him. “Well, I’ll do my best to give you the biggest and best weapons you’ve ever seen.”

Thor seems satisfied by that and leaves.

Tony stares at Loki until he finally looks up and meets Tony’s gaze. “I did try to warn you,” he says.

“When?” Tony yells.

“I said ‘Tony’,” Loki says, picking at imaginary dust on his cuff. “Right before you shook his hand.”

Tony shakes his head, in disbelief, in self-reproach. “So they think they’ve tricked me into building a magic atom bomb, huh?”

“I imagine so,” Loki says, warily. “Do you not intend to do that?”

Tony stares at Loki for a moment, trying to gauge the fae. “If I did, how would you feel about that?”

Tony watches for micro-expressions. A small moue of disgust twists Loki’s features before they smooth out and he says “I’m sure I would be appropriately grateful.”

A lie.

“And if I gave them their weapon, what do you think they’d do with it?”

Loki sighs. “They would… they would try to retake something that was lost long ago. Something that they probably shouldn’t have.”

“And if I decided to trick them instead?” Tony asks.

Loki looks up at him through dark lashes. “I would have to protect you from any… repercussions, I imagine,” Loki says quietly.

“But you would protect me?” Tony asks.

Loki closes his eyes and exhales slowly, then opens them. “I would protect you.”

“I have a plan, but I need your help. You said you would help me,” Tony says.

Loki closes his eyes again, as though he’s in pain.

“You know what I need,” Tony says.

Loki nods and turns away. “I will tell you everything. I will tell you about the iron, and as much as I remember about Odin...”

“Okay,” Tony says. “But?”

“But someday I will require a favor from you. No matter what it is, you must promise that you will do as I ask.” Loki turns to watch as Tony weighs his choices.

His options are limited. He either finds a way to incapacitate the furies and flee, or he loses his head. “In exchange for answering all my questions, I will owe you a favor,” Tony says, agreeing to Loki’s terms with trepidation.

“First, I will tell you what I remember of Odin,” Loki begins. “Odin was the ruler of this land, long before Frigga. He was clever and cruel, and admired by many. He was the first to exchange his soul for power, and many followed his example. They were the first fae. Those that didn’t exchange their souls remained on Gaia, and those that did exchange their souls moved along to these lands which are parallel to your lands.”

“He sold his soul for power?” Tony asks, with wide eyes. “How is that even possible?”

“Many things are possible,” Loki says, smiling gently. “When the first fae lost their souls, they lost their ability to dream and create. It was not a hardship in the golden days, for they had enough power to hold dominion over all. But as time wore on, humans began to match and even surpass them, so they invaded the lands of Nod, the dreaming lands of human minds. There they built palaces and strong holds and gorged themselves on human dreams in order to hold their progress at bay.”

“Fucked up,” Tony says.

“Yes, though it’s treason to say such things in the bright court. The dark court would agree with you, though. I… I will admit that I hold other treasonous thoughts,” Loki says. He fiddles nervously with some of the junk on his table.

“And what would those be?” Tony asks, leaning forward.

“I think… I think that it’s a lie that we can't create anything,” Loki says. He looks back up at Tony, mouth trembling a little. “I didn’t always think so, but recently...  I think the children of the first fae have souls. I think we can create and imagine and innovate, but Odin is too jealous to let us try. Instead he drives us to retake Nod. Or he did, before he was deposed by Frigga.”

“Why was he deposed?” Tony asks.

“I can’t remember,” Loki says. “I used to know, but I think Frigga took my memories. I have never asked for her to return them.”

“That’s crazy!” Tony says. “How can you be okay with not knowing?”

Loki shrugs. “I have seen many terrible things in my time. If Frigga decided that it was too much for me, then I trust her.”

“Like you trusted Odin?” Tony asks, folding his arms and raising an eyebrow.

Loki screams, red with rage, “Frigga is nothing like Odin!”

“And yet they are both lying to you,” Tony says.

For a moment it looks like Loki might strike him, but Tony doesn’t flinch away. Eventually Loki calms down, rage giving way to a palpable sorrow. “I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”

Loki looks lost and Tony finds himself stepping forward to embrace him gently. He’s not good with words of comfort, but he tries. “I’m sorry that they lied to you. That sucks a lot.”

He steps back and Loki looks even more lost. “You are a strange child.”

Tony has nothing to say to that, so instead he says “Tell me about the iron.”

So Loki tells him about the iron.

\--

The centaur leads them through the forest, chattering incessantly. Howard wants to kill him so badly, but they need him.

“This tree here, is good tree. Good ta pee on,” he says, pointing at a random tree as they pass by. He's said that about most of the trees they've passed.

He’s asked them to call him Morttarn. He seems to think the nickname is some clever joke, because he repeated the name three times and winked at them no less than seven times.

“What the hell is your accent?” Howard asks. “It keeps switching between Russian and German.”

“Is supposed ta be Irish,” Morttarn says defensively.

“Supposed to be?” Maria asks.

“Ya.”

“That was German,” Howard says.

“Look, I’m not really great at accents, okay?” Morttarn says. “Get off my tip.”

“Get off my tip? What kind of fucking mythical centaur speaks like that?” Howard asks, incredulously.

“A goddamn awesome one,” Morttarn says, winking at him.

The changeling motions to them to stop and be quiet, and they shuffle off the small path into the underbrush. A few minutes later two court guards ride by, mounted on unicorns. It’s absurd.

“We’re getting closer,” the changeling says quietly, after they can no longer hear the guards.

After a short time they get back on the path and continue.

“Given any thought to what you might like to be named?” Howard asks the changeling.

The changeling shakes his head. “No. I trust that whatever you name me will be fine.”

“What if I named you Beauford?”

The changeling shrugs. “Just need a name. I’ll make do.”

“Bojangles?”

Shrug.

“Big Titty Betty!”

The changeling looks over and raises an eyebrow. “Maybe not that.”

Howard grins, then remembers he’s joking with his son’s kidnapper. That sobers him up pretty quickly.

“You look like him, so I keep forgetting that you’re not really him. You’re the thing that stole my son,” Howard says.

“Technically I didn’t steal him. The Queen’s Puck stole him,” the changeling says. “I just distracted you.”

“That’s still horrible. Why would you help someone steal a child?” Howard asks.

The changeling is quiet for so long that Howard assumes he won’t receive an answer.

“We’re only supposed to take the children that aren’t wanted, or the ones that’ll die if we don’t,” the changeling says. “You and your son are famous in my world. Two humans with limitless imaginations. I think… I think that whoever gave the order to take your son knew who he was, and decided to take him regardless of whether he was wanted or not. I think this is political.”

Howard frowns, but doesn’t know what to say.

Morttarn points out some more trees to pee on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you know your Latin root words, and your old norse.


	15. It will change you.

Tony’s plan is literally insane, but Loki cannot come up with a better one, so he steps back and lets Tony do what Tony does best: barrel headfirst into certain doom.

First, Tony recruits Hulk to help him make the “weapons”. It doesn’t take much to convince Hulk to help him double cross the Furies, who were never very kind to Hulk to begin with.

“Fuck Furies,” Hulk says with feeling, and Tony gives him a lopsided grin and a thumbs up. Loki despairs.

Then Tony recruits the groomers, who will be responsible for unleashing chaos when the weapons hand off goes south (which it will), which will hopefully buy Tony and Loki enough time to escape.

“Don’t tell us what you’re planning,” Tony tells the little golden hair. “It’s better if we don’t know, so we don't give it away prematurely.”

“Got it!” the little golden hair says, saluting. Even wooden arm looks excited to be involved.

They spend a brief hour discussing when to implement the plan.

“Wait until the last hour of the last day?” Tony asks Loki, finalizing everything.

“More dramatic that way,” Loki agrees. They grin at each other, the same smile in two different faces. “If this goes wrong, we’re probably going to die,” Loki says, though not in a discouraging way.

“I was going to die eventually anyway. Might as well do it while sticking it to the man,” Tony says.

“What if we’re wrong?” Loki asks.

Tony bites a hangnail, staring off into space. “As long as we write it down afterwards it’s science, and there’s no wrong in science, just… just experiments on the path towards truth.”

“As comforting a lie as any,” Loki says.

Tony snorts, eyes twinkling in they way they do when Tony is very amused. But then they dim for a moment and he grows serious. “What does being a consort actually entail?”

“Why do you ask?” Loki asks, more than a little alarmed.

“People keep saying I’m your consort, and I’m trying to figure out if that means they think we’re boning or not,” Tony says with a shrug that tries to say ‘I don’t care’ but which actually says ‘I care quite a lot.’

Loki groans in exasperation. “I keep telling you we don’t do that sort of thing! I don’t have genitals!”

“Then explain to me the birds and the bees of fairies, because I’m sick of not understanding what the hell they're implying,” Tony says, pouting a little.

“It’s… oh lord,” Loki says, screwing up his face. “I don’t really understand it much myself. I was never… I never wanted to do that with a human. I was always trying to figure out how to do it by myself—not like that, you disgusting little boy,” Loki says as Tony makes a face. “Fae have power, but humans have vision. If we dream together we share this vision and this power, and with it we can create what we dream.”

“A unicorn that poops ice cream?” Tony asks hopefully.

“It wouldn’t be just your vision, it would be both our visions,” Loki says, rolling his eyes. “We would have to be compatible dreamers. If we couldn’t agree on what to make, nothing would come of it.”

“Are you telling me you don’t think a unicorn that poops ice cream is amazing?” Tony asks, affecting a wounded expression.

“I find unicorns to be annoyingly delicate creatures,” Loki says with dignity. “And I don’t desire to eat anything’s excrement. You are horrifying, Tony.”

Tony is silent for a while, thoughtful in a way that Loki has come to find suspicious. Loki is still under oath to answer all of Tony’s questions and Tony has been taking full advantage of that. Loki dreads what is coming next and suddenly knows what Tony will ask before he even opens his mouth to speak it.

“Don’t ask me about names,” Loki begs.

“I have to,” Tony says apologetically. “I have to know.”

Loki sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose in despair. “What do you want to know?”

“Why are names so important and powerful to the fae?” Tony asks.

Loki takes his time in answering and Tony doesn’t push him.

“True names are a very intimate thing. A true name is the word which brings a fae into the universe, the word that comes to both creators at the moment of inspiration. It holds a lot of power in my culture and not purely for magical reasons. There are social ones, too. Knowing someone’s true name means that you have intimate knowledge of them, like knowing their… their bank account password, or the color of their underwear,” Loki says, trying to explain it in a way that Tony might understand.

“And what _magical_ reasons do fae have for protecting their real name?” Tony asks.

“You always know exactly what to ask,” Loki says miserably.

"I'm awful like that," Tony agrees, but again lets Loki take his time again before answering.

“We can be unmade, which is like death but more permanent. It is near impossible to do, of course. But if you know someone’s name it _is_ possible. Fae who fancy themselves powerful warriors may choose to go by their birth name as a show of power. Most of us choose to be safe. I have many nicknames, not just one, so many think I am a coward,” Loki says.

“How did the little groomer know your true name?” Tony asks.

“That I don’t know,” Loki says with a small frown. “It is concerning. But still, that is why it is rude to ask a name.”

“It’s like asking to see someone’s underwear,” Tony says, nodding slowly. “Or threatening them with a knife.”

“Both at the same time,” Loki says. “Which I’m sure you will agree is very rude indeed.”

Tony seems satisfied with that, and leaves off the line of questioning.

The next few days are spent looking busy.

“Appearances,” Tony says, winking at Loki.

“Just so,” Loki says, with a small smile.

\--

Howard and Maria wait in the woods while Morttarn and the changeling check the borders of the castle for a vulnerable point of entry.

“How much do we actually trust these fuckers?” Howard asks.

“Not even a little bit,” Maria says, looking at the centaur’s knife in her hand. “If things go south, you focus on getting Tony out first.”

Howard grabs her hand and squeezes. “We’re getting our son back and going home, together."

After that they wait in silence. Everything they need to say has already been said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, focusing on getting this bitch finished by tomorrow, y'all. I think there is one more chapter, followed by an epilogue.


	16. Unless you're Tony Stark

Loki and Tony walk down to the inner court yard to meet the furies.

“What happens to you when this is over?” Tony asks.

Loki snorts. “It just now occurred to you to worry about me?”

“Well, I didn’t like you before, but now we’ve been spending some time together and I don’t necessarily want you to die, anymore,” Tony says.

Loki lets Tony stew for a while, then smiles, patting him on the shoulder in a friendly way. “I’ll be fine. They expect these sorts of… shenanigans from me. It’s almost my job to throw everything into chaos.”

Tony thinks that Loki might be lying, but is just selfish enough to want to be comforted that he doesn’t call Loki out on it.

They turn the corner and Tony sees that the courtyard is filled. “Uh… who are these people?”

“The furies,” Loki says.

There are hundreds of them, all in dark leather, swords and shields and other, deadlier looking things hanging at their sides.

“I thought there were only three,” Tony says faintly.

Loki turns to look at him, eyes wide with incredulity. “They… they are the castle guard. Why would there only be three?”

“I only met three!” Tony says through gritted teeth, resisting the urge to run his hands through his hair in frustration.

Loki groans. “Tony, how many weapons did you make?”

“Three, I only had enough iron for three,” Tony hisses.

“Let’s hope that the two idiots have a good distraction lined up,” Loki says quietly. “My estimation of our ability to...  _survive_ this encounter relied upon the assumption that your weapons would incapacitate the entire guard at once.”

“We have got to learn to communicate better,” Tony says miserably. “Oh-fucking-well. It’s show time.”

Tony continues walking forward, passing the ranks of stone faced fae to meet Nix where he stands in the center.

“Tony Stark,” Nix says, smiling brightly. “I hope that you have made us something glorious. We have waited with bated breath to see what you and your stolen blacksmith can come up with.”

“I’m a master at keeping people bated,” Tony says. “A true master bater. Let’s get the show on the fucking road, people. Where is the Hulk?” Tony cries, looking around dramatically.

A roar and a cacophonous clanging of metal announces the arrival of the Hulk, who comes barreling over the battlements carrying three coffin sized cases.

“There he is!” Tony cries happily. The furies look annoyed, but hold their tongues while the Hulk sidles up to Tony and deposits the three cases at his feet. “Thank you, Hulk.”

“Tony welcome,” Hulk says, grinning at him brightly.

“The beast speaks,” Nix says, looking mildly interested.

Hulk growls dangerously and Tony pats him soothingly on the hand. “It’s okay, he’s just upset that he doesn’t get to bully you anymore.”

“Show us the weapons,” Foal-son says mildly.

“Keep your pants on, we’re getting to that part,” Tony says, waving his hand dismissively.

“I can’t help but to notice that there are only three boxes,” Nix says, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, well, scarcity drives up demand, baby,” Tony lies smoothly. “If I made enough for everybody, you could just kill me and take my weapons. This way, you have to keep me alive if you want more.”

“Unless we don’t like your weapons,” Nix says with a nasty grin.

“We both know that isn’t going to happen,” Tony says with confidence. “Ladies, gentlemen, whatever that is,” Tony says, pointing over at a non-gendered gelatinous entity that oozes threateningly, “Allow me to introduce… the Whistlers.”

Tony pulls out a little gold pan flute and plays a short burst of song.

As the last note rings out, a gleaming gold fist punches through the metal lid of the case, then rips the rest of the lid away piece by piece. Finally, a gleaming metal man rises upwards, eyes glowing a dull red.

“What is it?” Nix asks breathlessly, mouth agape, utterly entranced despite himself. “What does it do?”

“It can do anything you want it to,” Tony says, putting his lips back on the pipe. He blows three short trills, and the metal man levitates a few feet off the ground. Three more trills and gleaming metal knives fly into its hands. Tony puts it through its paces, showing off—it can shoot flames from its mouth, it can shoot darts with incredible precision, it can shrink, expand, turn invisible. “Imagine a whole army of these. All your soldiers need to do is learn how to play.”

Tony holds the pipe over to Nix, who grabs at it greedily. Tony hands the other two pipes to Foal-son and Underhill, who immediately start piping.

Tony steps back and watches as Nix and his two generals pilot the Whistlers around the court yard, trying out the different features. The other furies cheer as Nix crashes his Whistler into Foal-son’s, cheer as Underhill knocks them both from the sky, only to turn tail as Nix and Foal-son quickly pursue.

For nearly a full half hour they play.

“I want more of these,” Nix says after finally pulling the pipe away from his mouth.

Underhill looks just as excited as Nix but Foal-son is starting to frown. “Why pipes?” he asks.

“What do you mean?” Tony asks innocently.

“Why are they piloted with pipes?” Foal-son clarifies.

“Oh! Oh, that is a really, really good question. Very clever, I can tell you’re a clever one. It’s in the eyes,” Tony says, winking at Foal-son. “See… it was the only way I could think of to get the iron into your systems quickly enough.”

Nix’s eyes bulge. “Iron?”

“Oooh, yes. It’s common knowledge on my planet that Iron keeps the fae away, but I’m a scientist at heart. I’m not happy until I know _why_. So I asked my bestie, Loki, why Iron is so bad for fae.” Tony pats Loki on the arm. “My brilliant friend wasn’t entirely sure, he gave me some nonsense about magic, but I got there on my own eventually. My first clue was that I no longer needed to eat! That was a bit strange, considering I’ve needed to eat since the day I was born. I got my second clue when Loki told me how the first fae came to exist—he told me they gave up their _souls_.”

Tony looks around at the gathered furies, who are hanging on his every word. This moment is glorious and he savors it before continuing. “Now, I’m a devout atheist, I don’t believe in that soul stuff really. Your magic is just a science I don’t understand yet. So what did they actually give up when they gave up their souls? Not their imagination, I can tell you that much.

Every culture has a different idea of what a soul _is._  Ancient Greeks equated the soul to _breath_ , which got me thinking. What is iron used for in the body? Essentially it’s used for _breathing_. Breathing is an essential part of metabolic processes; oxygen helps convert nutrients to carbon dioxide and adamantine triceratops, which keeps the body going, or whatever. I didn’t really give that much of a shit about biology, so I could be wrong about that last bit.

So, I did a little experiment when Loki wasn’t watching. I ate some of your food,” Tony says, turning to look at Loki who looks horrified. “I realized why I’d been warned off it. As soon as I swallowed, I became sick as a dog. I vomited for hours.”

“Tony, you could have died!” Loki cries.

“Yeah. Yeah, I could have. I wasn’t able to digest a fucking thing, because I’m not actually breathing oxygen right now, am I?” Tony asks. “Some of my key metabolic processes aren't working. I can hold a piece of metal for hours and it stays cold. I bet I could breathe on a piece of glass and it wouldn’t fog up.”

Loki shakes his head slowly, eyes wide.

“Oxygen is essential for metabolic processes, but it ages things pretty quickly, doesn’t it? All living things are slowly rusting away from the inside. But not you guys. You’re functionally immortal, because there is no oxygen here,” Tony says. “When you guys gave up oxygen you probably gave up iron too, which means it’s probably pretty fucking toxic to you if you ingest it.”

Right on cue, Nix, Underhill, and Foal-son collapse.

“God, that was perfect fucking timing,” Tony says, pumping a fist.

For a moment everything is still and quiet, and then the stillness cracks like glass and the rest of the furies descend.

Hulk sweeps aside the first wave of attackers and Loki quickly shields Tony in a shell of green and gold magic. “You little idiot!” he seethes.

“I’m a genius,” Tony says shakily, clinging to Loki in a very manly and mature way.

“Those two idiots can come through with their diversion any time now,” Loki murmurs. Hulk is doing a damn fine job of beating the soldiers back, but there are so many of them and eventually they will over power him.

Tony points up at the battlements as golden hair and wooden arm appear, waving their hands. “Is that their fucking diversion?” he asks incredulously.

“No, they’re warning us,” Loki says, mouth set in a grim line.

“Odin!” screams a guard, just as a crack of thunder rends the night, burying itself in Hulk’s chest.

Hulk falls to the ground and Tony screams.

“Oh… oh no,” Loki breathes.

The sounds of battle cease as Odin strolls into the court yard.

“Where is Frigga?” Loki asks, looking around wildly. “Why aren’t they attacking him?”

Odin holds his hands up in a gesture of triumph. “My loyal guards, how long we’ve waited for this moment!” The guards chant Odin’s name over and over, thrusting their weapons into the air. Odin smiles and continues. “And now, it’s time for my moment. Where is Thor?”

Three guards emerge from within the castle, carrying an unconscious Thor, who has been tied up and gagged.

“And the queen?” Odin asks.

“Missing, highness,” the guard says.

“I’ll find her when we’re done here,” Odin says, waving a hand at the guard dismissively. “Now, the little human. Where is he?” The guards move aside and Odin smiles at Tony and Loki. “Gift wrapped,” he purrs. Then he makes a violent gesture with his hand and Loki’s shell cracks.

Tony feels an invisible fist close around his throat and he is ripped violently away from Loki’s arms, and hurled across the courtyard. He hits the stone wall and slumps to the ground.

For a moment he feels like he’s dying, vision whiting out, and he swears he can hear his mother screaming.

“Tony! Get up and fight!”

He blinks awake in time to see his mother standing on the other side of the courtyard. She winds her arm back and chucks something hard at him before the guards descend on her. He watches as the projectile glitters, soaring through the air with impeccable aim. He catches it.

She has thrown him a knife. The scabbard depicts a green serpent in enamel. Tony unsheathes it and stares at the dull grey metal, so dull that it can’t even reflect the moonlight. Odin saunters towards him slowly.

“Come at me boy, if you’re brave enough,” he says. “I will give you one chance to hit me. There is no iron for you to poison _me_ with, so strike well.”

Tony struggles to stand, throat still sore from where Odin’s invisible hand grabbed him. He looks back down at his knife and remembers Yinsen telling him to polish the iron on moonlight. Tony wiggles the dull blade in his hand experimentally, working it back and forth under the light, just to see if…

The metal slowly starts to lose its dullness.

“One strike?” Tony asks, looking back up quickly.

“Yes,” Odin says, grinning. “Make it count, boy.”

“Okay!” Tony yells. “Try this on for size, you douche bag!”

He throws the knife through the air, watching as it loses the last of its dullness on the moonlight. Odin watches too, eyes widening in horror, but it’s too late.

It strikes him true in the chest, sinking deep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adamantine Triceratops. That boy, I swear.


	17. In which case fuck it

Everything happens so fast. Tony is ripped from Loki's arms in an instant, but before Loki can go after him several guards descend upon him. When Loki finally gets free he locates Tony on the other side of the yard, just in time to watch the boy hurl a knife with expert aim into Odin’s chest.

As Odin collapses the guards also crumple to the ground, like puppets with their strings cut.

“Freaky,” says a random centaur who somehow got into the castle. The changeling is standing some distance away, looking around with alarm. Tony’s parents rush across the court yard to him.

“Tony!” Howard cries.

“Dad!”

While Tony reunites with his parents, Loki picks his way across unconscious guards to where Odin lays, slowly dying. When Odin catches sight of Loki he starts laughing quietly. “Looks like the Fang of Jormungandr managed to kill me after all. You must be so proud.”

Loki frowns a little, the edges of a missing memory tickling the inside of his skull. “Who?”

Odin closes his eyes and smiles. “Oh, Frigga has much to answer for.”

“I do indeed,” Frigga says, materializing next to Odin. “As do you, husband. Where is our son?”

“Unconscious, but unharmed,” Odin says placidly. “Will you tell Loki, or shall I?”

Frigga flinches when Loki turns to look at her. “Tell me,” he says. When she remains frozen, he screams “Tell me!”

“Look at the knife,” she says, closing her eyes. “Look at the knife.”

So Loki reaches down and rips it from Odin’s chest. The little gasp of pain that Odin releases does nothing to soothe his rage. He examines the knife in minute detail, noting the serpent, the world. “I do not understand.”

“Because you will not allow yourself to,” Frigga says. “Look again.”

So Loki looks.

Like a shadow passing over his eyes he imagines the hand of the fae who wielded this knife, sees clearly the long fingered and well shaped hand that looks like his own, but is not.

_“I will call it Fang, father,” the young fae says, grinning at him brightly. “All who threaten me will feel its sting.”_

_“A good name for a fierce weapon,” Loki says, embracing his son._

_His son._

“I… I…” Loki cannot say the words out loud.

“You had a son,” Frigga says, for him. “You had three sons, and a daughter.”

“Where…” Loki cannot ask the question.

“They are dead,” Frigga says.

“I had children,” Loki says firmly. “I had children? Why do I not remember? Did you take my memories?” Loki asks numbly. He feels like he is falling.

“I didn’t. I would never,” Frigga says, frowning. “In your grief you wanted to forget, and you sealed your memories away on the same day I sealed Odin away.”

Odin.

“You killed my children,” Loki says to Odin, knowing it is the truth.

“I ate them,” Odin says with a satisfied grin. “As punishment for your hubris. Then I hid Yinsen away where you could never find him.”

“Yinsen,” Loki says. The name still is not familiar to him, though he has heard it twice now.

“The wretched human that gave you the idea to try creating life on your own. I curse the day we brought him to our halls,” Odin says faintly. He is close to death now. “Your children were abominations, monsters born from the mind of a monster. Their very existence threatened the stability of our world, just like you did.”

“You killed my children… because I was more powerful than you,” Loki says quietly. This too is the truth, though Odin does not acknowledge it.

Odin does not answer at all. He closes his eyes and they do not open again.

Loki isn’t sure how long he sits there, staring at Odin. Eventually Tony comes to sit with Loki, wrapping his arm around Loki’s shoulders. He doesn’t say anything.

“I don’t remember them,” Loki says quietly.

Tony squeezes gently. “Right now that might be a good thing.”

“Tony?” his mother calls. Tony goes to his mother and Loki stays at Odin’s side, thinking.

He created his children on his own, which means that no one knows their names. There is no chance that he would ever reveal their true names, not even to them. He would bury their true names as deeply as possible, even from himself.

“Oh,” Loki says, eyes widening.

“What is it?” Tony asks immediately.

“As long as the name exists, we cannot truly die,” Loki says breathlessly. “Even Odin could rise again, if the runes that bear his name are not erased diligently. Tony, I need your help.”

Loki starts running back to his workshop and Tony follows after, ignoring his parents who call for him to stay.

“They’re here somewhere,” Loki says when they arrive at his workshop, pointing at the table full of junk. “So many times I wanted to throw things away, but I never did. I never allowed anyone in here to clean, even. There were wards on the doors to prevent anything from being taken.”

“How can I help?” Tony asks, frowning a little. Frigga and his parents arrive, breathless, and stop in the doorway to watch Tony and Loki.

“I want you to pick through the items on my table and throw away everything that doesn’t belong,” Loki says, holding out a basket for Tony to put trash into.

“Okay,” Tony says slowly. He picks through the items on Loki’s table, starting with the squirrel skull wrapped in gold wire that he first noticed. There are various bundles of herbs that smell disgusting, and they go in the basket. A broken rib bone, a misshapen clay cup, and a shard of sea glass also make it into the basket. Tony fills it to the top with strange items that Loki has been hoarding. All that is left are things that look actually useful, sets of scales, small bowls of powder, knives, chopping boards. “So, the runes are hidden somewhere in this stuff?” he asks, pointing at the table.

“No, it’s in the basket of stuff you threw away,” Loki says, eagerly taking the basket back from Tony. “You always make the worst decisions, so whatever you’ve put in here has to be where I’ve hidden the runes.”

“I would be insulted if it weren’t true,” Tony says glumly. Loki looks up at him and grins, then back down into the basket.

First Loki examines the sea glass. “I… I feel like I remember this. One of my children gave this to me when I took him to view the oceans of Gaia. He found it on the sand and said it was a scale of a great dragon.” He has no visual memory of this moment, but there is still something there telling him that is what happened.

Next, Loki examines the clay cup. “My daughter made this,” he says with certainty. “On my birthday she gave it to me, filled with a bouquet of dead flowers. It was our little joke.” Loki runs his hand over the bundle of foul smelling herbs and places them in the cup. He places it next to the sea glass.

He picks up the skull wrapped in wire. “This… my son hunted this. It was his first kill, and he gave it to me. I wrapped it in the wire and kept it.” He places the skull next to the sea glass and the clay cup.

But no matter how hard he looks, he cannot find anything else that triggers a memory. “I had four children,” Loki says miserably. “Four. Why can I not find the forth?”

He cradles his head in his hands and groans with frustration.

“Loki?” Tony asks, frowning a little. “You said the wards prevent anything from being taken?”

“Yes,” Loki says.

“I took these out when I went looking for the dungeons,” Tony says, reaching into his pocket. “I just remembered right now. I thought I might be able to use them for lock picking.”

Tony hands Loki four golden horse shoe nails.

As soon as they touch Loki’s hand he knows. “Tony,” he says, laughing and crying at the same time. “Tony! You broke my wards and I didn’t even realize it!”

Loki places the horse shoe nails with the other items and considers them critically.

“The runes are hidden here somewhere. I just have to know how to look at them,” Loki says. “I need to do this alone.”

“Oh, okay,” Tony says, taking a hesitant step back. “I’m… I’m probably going home now. Should we… say goodbye or something?”

Loki doesn't want to say goodbye. He wants to keep Tony, and keep getting into and out of trouble with him.

“Goodbye, Tony,” Loki says instead, nodding at him. “Thank you, for this.”

Then he turns his back on Tony, unable and unwilling to watch him go.

\--

Frigga walks them to the throne room. “I imagine you will want to complete the changeling trial, since you came all this way?”

“Yes,” Howard and Maria say immediately.

“Very well,” Frigga says, smiling. To an attendant she says “Take the changeling and the child away, and prepare them. Let us complete this quickly.”

Howard and Maria wait anxiously, until Tony and the changeling have been brought back and positioned in front of the queen. They are dressed in identical outfits, hair styled identically, anything that might have set them apart has been erased. Frigga calls for attention. “You have navigated your way here through the treacherous forest, showing your dedication to getting your son back. Now, you must demonstrate your fitness as parents. Do you know which of these is your real child?”

“I just have to pick my real child?” Howard asks. “That’s too easy.”

“Too easy?” the queen asks, raising an eyebrow. “Alright, I wouldn’t want to disappoint.” She waves a hand and Tony and the changeling are transformed into two small stones; a piece of quartz and a piece of flint. “Pick,” she says with a sharp toothed grin.

“And we only have to pick our real child to complete this test and go home?” Maria asks again to clarify.

“Yes, which of these is your child?” the queen asks, a slight edge of impatience to her voice.

Howard and Maria look at each other, then look back at the queen and say in unison “Both of them.”

The queen blinks rapidly. “What do you mean?”

“We adopted the changeling. He is our son now,” Howard says. “Now, give us our children back and we can go.”

The queen opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again, then sighs in defeat.

“Very well, you have passed the trial. Take your children and go.” She waves a hand and the flint and quartz turn back into their children.

“Mom!” shouts Tony happily, running to give her a hug. Then he turns and gives his dad a hug. “Dad,” he whispers.

“My boy,” Howard says. “I’m so proud of you. I’m so incredibly proud of you, and how brave and strong and brilliant you are.”

“Quit it,” Tony says, turning red and burying his face harder into his dad’s chest.

“Never. I never told you enough how much I adore you, but that changes today Tony,” Howard says, stroking Tony’s hair back and kissing his forehead.

The changeling nods at the queen and goes to stand with the Starks.

Howard gazes at the changeling with a small smile, arms still around his son. “You ready for your name, son?” he asks.

The changeling nods, wringing his hands a little with nervous anticipation.

“Welcome to the family, Flint.” Howard drags Flint into the embrace, and holds both his sons tightly. “Thank you for getting Tony back,” he murmurs quietly into Flint’s ear. “You can go where you like when we get back to our world, but I hope that you will consider staying with us.”

“Technically you’re the little brother, and I get to boss you around,” Tony says to Flint, and Flint giggles.

Maria comes up behind them and they have a hug sandwich, and it’s disgusting and wonderful.

“Get out of my throne room,” the queen says, annoyed.

“Before we go, I want to know if I was right!” Tony says. “Was I right about the oxygen and iron and soul stuff?”

“What makes you think I was even listening to your rambling?” The queen asks, with more curiosity than derision.

“Don’t insult my intelligence, of course you were listening,” Tony says. “Was I right?”

The queen laughs a little. “Of course you weren’t right. Nothing you said was even remotely close to the truth.”

Tony is livid. “Well what then? How the hell did my plan work? Why is iron bad for fae? Why couldn't I digest anything?”

“The answer to all of that is magic, of course,” the queen says with a sneer.

Then she snaps her fingers and the Starks disappear, back to their world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue either later today or tomorrow, depending on how tired I am.


	18. Just do what you want.

Ten days later:

 

After the press conference, where Flint Stark (looking drastically different from how he looked ten days previously—gangly with sandy blonde hair and a round face that just screams “teen heartthrob”) is introduced as the newest member of the Stark family, they return to their compound in upstate New York.

“Did you have to make them all fall in love with you so quickly? My life is hard enough trying to compete with dad, now I have to watch out for you too?” Tony whines.

“Suck it,” says Flint, who is taking to the family bickering like a whale to water.

“Both of you shut up,” Howard says. “I swear to god I’m going to ground both of you.”

“Good fucking luck,” Tony and Flint say in unison.

Maria beams over at Howard. “Stereo.”

“Stop encouraging them,” Howard grumbles, but in the way they all know means he’s actually enjoying himself.

Tony runs up to his room to check email as soon as the driver stops. He’s hoping for word from the grant office. He hasn’t even started college yet and he’s already submitting research ideas.

Part of him also hopes that maybe Loki will be there waiting in his room, or something. He owes Loki a favor, after all.

Tony has a lot of email, but no Loki. He flings himself down on the bed dramatically and contemplates having a tantrum for the hell of it.

Flint comes barging into his room. “Widow wants to know what Gucci is, and where to get it.”

“Ah, your imaginary girlfriend,” Tony says, grinning lazily.

“Not imaginary!” Flint says, frowning. “Shy and suspicious.”

“Go talk to mom about it,” Tony says rolling over so his back is to Flint.

Flint comes flying across the room and tackles him on the bed. “Tell me where the Gucci can be located!” he yells, punching Tony in the kidney. They wrestle for a good half hour, before both of them get tired enough to stop enjoying it.

“You’re getting good at the sibling rivalry thing,” Tony says, nodding happily.

“It’s easy because you’re a douche,” Flint says.

They high five each other.

Ten months later:

Tony kicks his dorm room door open and shuffles over to the bed, exhausted beyond reason. It’s 3am and Rhodey isn’t back from whatever party he’s gone off too.

“Mmm, I guess I get to masturbate in bed tonight,” Tony says to himself, yawning a little.

“I would rather you wait until I left,” Loki says drily from across the room.

Tony shrieks and falls off the bed onto the floor, staring up at Loki with shock. Then excitement. Then anger.

“Where the hell have you been?!” Tony shouts. “Ten months! Ten months? I thought we were friends and I haven’t heard from you in ten months!” Tony throws a shoe at Loki, who makes it disappear in a burst of flames before it can hit him in the face. “You’re replacing that,” Tony says, pointing a finger at him.

“You throw things, you lose them. Every five year old human child knows this,” Loki says, shrugging. “Anyway, it has not been ten months for me. I apologize.” Loki does actually look apologetic.

“Any… any luck finding your kids?” Tony asks awkwardly.

Loki shrugs. “I set myself a difficult puzzle, but I know I will solve it one day. I am as hopeful and patient as I can be.”

“Cool, cool,” Tony says, looking around the room a little, trying to figure out what to talk about.

Loki looks just as awkward, standing in the corner.

“Sooo…” Tony says, then remembers something. “I left before I saw what happened to Hulk. Is he okay?”

Loki examines his nails with affected boredom. “Yes, but these days he’s a little smaller, and less green.”

“Weird,” Tony says, frowning a little.

“Yes, quite,” Loki says.

Another awkward silence descends.

“Are you here about the favor?” Tony asks.

Loki shakes his head. “No, just… just thought I’d come say hello. Make sure you were still alive. You are very catastrophe prone.”

“Less catastrophe prone these days,” Tony says, grinning. “I’ve gone ten months without being kidnapped.”

“Well, that’s a marvel,” Loki says with a grin.

They are quiet again, sharing a smile, but this time it isn’t awkward. It’s fond and comfortable.

Eventually Loki has to leave.

“Don’t wait ten months to show up next time,” Tony says, shaking a finger.

“I promise,” Loki says, disappearing in a flash of green.

 

Ten years later:

They shove his head underwater again and this time he really, really hopes he dies. He can’t take much more of this.

But he doesn’t die.

There is a _hole in his chest_ and he doesn’t die.

The man who saved him, a man name Ho Yinsen (and Tony wonders for a moment if the Yinsen that saved him when he was a child is an ancestor of this Yinsen, and if he’s destined to always be saved by Yinsens), tells him he is lucky.

“Average men were not made to survive such things,” he says, tapping the car battery that is keeping Tony alive. “But I suppose heroes such as yourself are made of sterner stuff.”

Yinsen kinda hero worships him. Apparently Tony’s anti-missile technology, the Whistler Module, saved Yinsen’s village from being decimated. Tony tries to play it cool, but is secretly really excited that someone likes his tech. Usually he’s being lambasted for his decision to dismantle the Stark weapons unit shortly after Howard died in a car accident. Maria is proud of him though, and so is Flint, so most of the time Tony’s okay wth his decision.

“Just survive a little longer and your brother will come save us,” Yinsen says with certainty, and Tony sighs. Of course Yinsen is a Flinter—an avid member of the gaggle of groupies that wear stupid t-shirts and throw parades every time Flint so much as saves a baby.

Tony saves babies too, damn it.

Tony doesn’t need to be saved though. The terrorists have captured him and demanded that he build an anti-Whistler device so that they can finally use the dud missiles that Hammer Tech sold ‘em. So, Tony is playing along, acting like he’s building an anti-Whistler device, but actually building what he promised himself he’d never build—a weapon. It’s a suit and its main purpose is to carry himself and Yinsen out of these caves, but it’s definitely mostly a weapon.

But the terrorists get impatient before he's finished, and force Tony’s hand. He and Yinsen have to move the schedule up before the suit is entirely ready. It’s so close, too close, and Yinsen grabs a gun from one of the unconscious guards before Tony can stop him. “I will buy you time,” Yinsen says.

“No!” Tony cries as Yinsen runs screaming into the hallway, firing the gun in the air.

Two things happen very quickly. The suit finishes powering up and an explosion of green flame shoots down the hallway. “Yinsen!”

Tony hurries to the doorway as quickly as he can in the heavy armor. Just as he gets there Loki walks in, holding an unconscious Yinsen. “I was not expecting him to run out. He got caught in the spell.”

“Is he…”

“Just asleep. No one is dead. They will all be rounded up by the appropriate forces,” Loki assures him, kneeling down to put Yinsen on the small cot.

He stands again and turns to face Tony, looking at him with fascination. “You have changed so much.”

Tony nods a little. It’s a very surreal moment. “Ten years, you know. Kinda a lot of time for us mortals.”

Loki’s eyes widen. “Ten years?”

“Yeah,” Tony says. “Thought you’d died or forgotten me.”

“Never,” Loki says fervently.

“You ever get your kids back?” Tony asks when the silence threatens to turn meaningful. Ten years is a lot of time to get over whatever it was he thought or felt about Loki, his kidnapper and rescuer. Tony’s had sex with lots of people, gotten in trouble, fallen in and out of love. Loki isn’t anything important anymore, just a blast from the past. That is all.

“Yes,” Loki says warmly, eyes crinkling with a smile that threatens to make Tony a liar.

“Awesome,” Tony says with a thumbs up. “Uh, really hate to bother you, but can you get us out of here?”

“Mm? Oh, yes. It’s a bit drab, here, isn't it?” Loki says, looking around for the first time. He snaps his fingers and Tony and Yinsen are deposited back at the Stark Compound in upstate New York, where he no longer lives. Loki isn’t there, and Tony tries to tell himself he isn’t disappointed.

 

One hundred years later:

It became obvious to Tony at around age fifty that something was up. Clean living only gets you so far. No wrinkles, no grey hair, no blood pressure issues.

“You’re the only man I’ve ever met who’s gone to see a doctor because they were too healthy,” Rhodey says, rolling his eyes.

“I mean, is it the green juice? Yoga? Not eating fast food? Why do I still look like I’m twenty, while you look like a scrotum?” Tony asks, grinning when Rhodey flips him off.

“Fuck you, I’m gorgeous,” Rhodey says with a petulant frown.

“Yeah, yeah you are,” Tony says, leaning in to give him a kiss.

Then Tony turns sixty and even Rhodey has to admit that something is up.

There are lots of very advanced tests, but nothing conclusive. “Just really good genes,” the doctor says, but there is an upward inflection at the end that makes it sound like a question. When he asks Flint, Flint just shrugs and says “I ain’t doin’ nothin’. I wish you’d die already so I could inherit the fortune.”

“I’m starting to get insecure,” Rhodey admits one night. “You look like you’ve always looked, but I’m…”

“You’re the most beautiful man in the world,” Tony says with sincerity.

Rhodey dies in his seventies, way too young. A lot of Tony’s friends die soon after.

Tony disappears, suspected suicide.

Flint finds him, of course.

“If you wanted to go off the grid you should have picked a mountain shack that wasn’t hooked up to mega-nerd-high speed internet,” Flint says. The Widow is there too, long since emerged from the shadows. She tolerates Tony, and he tolerates her.

“Get out of my crap-shack,” Tony says, but without any real ire.

They live there, the three of them, for nearly fifty more years before Loki shows his bastard face again.

“You mother fucker,” Tony yells, throwing his glass at Loki’s head. “One hundred years! One hundred fucking years!”

“And you haven’t aged a day,” Loki says, attempting to be diplomatic. That is the last thing that Tony needs to hear and he chases Loki around the crap-shack for nearly an hour before he loses interest in being angry.

“Please tell me you’re here to kill me. Bell bottoms are making a comeback again, and I just don’t have it in me,” Tony says.

“I am here to… here to make an offer,” Loki says, looking anywhere but at Tony.

“Oh good,” Tony says with a derisive laugh.

“You’ve no doubt noticed that you are not…” Loki waves a hand up and down at Tony to indicate the obvious conclusion to that sentence.

“Not aging? Did you do this to me? Oh my fucking god, you did something to me!” Tony shouts, infuriated again.

“You did it to yourself! I told you not to eat fae food!” Loki yells.

That shuts Tony up. “Oh… Oh yeah…”

“My offer, then, if you have entirely calmed yourself,” Loki says with dignity.

“Fine,” Tony says, frowning and folding his arms.

“Come with me, back to my kingdom. Live there with me and my people. Be… be my consort,” Loki says quietly, looking down at the ground. Tony tries not to notice how similar this moment feels to a marriage proposal.

“This an offer, or the favor I owe you?” Tony asks, choosing shrewdness over sentiment.

Loki looks up at him and frowns. “I forgot you owed me a favor…”

They are quiet for a while after that, both of them contemplating important thoughts.

“I am not above demanding the favor you owe me, but I would prefer that you accept this offer freely,” Loki says finally.

“Ah, thinly veiled threats. Nice to know you’re still an asshole,” Tony says, grinning a little despite himself. But he is old and tired inside, even if he isn’t on the outside. “I watched the love of my life die, you know. I watched my parents die, my friends. I’ve seen wars that I never would have imagined, wars I could have avoided if I’d died when I was supposed to.”

“Maybe you weren’t supposed to die,” Loki says, biting his lip. “Maybe you were supposed to come live with me. Am I really such a bad alternative to death?”

 “Why did you wait so long to come back to me?” Tony demands, instead of answering. “Why didn’t you make this offer sooner, when I wasn’t so… worn out?”

Loki sighs. “I wanted you to live your life, as much as you could. Receive all the joy and pain that you were due. I didn’t want to steal you again.”

And that is apparently all Tony needed to hear.

“Yeah… Yeah, okay. Let’s go. Let me write Flint a note and grab a couple things, and we’ll go.”

Tony grabs Rhodey’s wedding ring and puts it on a chain around his neck. The ring is made of iron—most things he gave to Rhodey were made of iron. “ _My Iron Man_ ,” Rhodey would say, rolling his eyes and giggling over whatever absurd trinket it was Tony had made him. Rhodey never asked about the iron and Tony never explained.

He also grabs the photo album.

Then he writes Flint a note, which is suitably flippant and devoid of sentimentality. The sort of note that would make their father proud.

 

_Dear Flint,_

_Off to become queen of the fairies. Come visit soon, or whatever._

_Tony_

 

When that is finished, he joins Loki at the front door.

“You’re going to regret this,” Tony promises.

Loki reaches out a tentative hand and rests it on Tony’s shoulder. “I have regretted many things, but I could never regret knowing you.” Then he kisses Tony on the cheek and says “Let’s go get into trouble.”

Tony laughs. “Take me away, Calgon."

They disappear from the world together for a final time, leaving behind sparks of green and gold magic that disappear soon after, like stars in the dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of a very strange experiment. This was the least planned of all my stories and I think that showed in some places. However, parts of this story contain some of my favorite dialogue and moments I've ever written. In many ways this was an incredibly personal sort of thing that I shared with those of you who were patient enough to join me. This is the least planned, but also the least edited of all my works. It made me feel incredibly vulnerable at times, but...
> 
> This story was written in hour long bursts over several months, during a very difficult seasonal depression that coincided with horrific stress from work. I forced myself to create, even when I wanted to stab my eyes out with pencils instead. It taught me that I can create, even when I don't want to. It taught me that I want to write full time because even when getting started felt like cutting my own leg off, I would always reach a point in the process where I caught an updraft. Remembering what it felt like to soar was all it took to convince myself to try getting off the ground again.
> 
> I grew while writing this and now I take a break from borrowing these characters in order to make my own. I will see where that takes me. 
> 
> Thank you for any kindness you have given me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.


End file.
